High Flight
by Vi Co
Summary: An ongoing Post-Admin story following the lives of the Bartlet Legacy. Suggestions and criticism are welcomed. Completed!
1. the Legacy

Author's Note: This story is a combination of three different methods, each of which is denoted differently. There are two different timelines flowing through the story, and they merge at the end. The sections in italics take place in the 'present', or in the year that the book is published. The sections in bold are excerpts from the book, High Flight. And the sections in normal text are 'flashbacks'. Dividers are placed between sections for further clarity.

This story runs from eight years after the end of Bartlet's second term until twenty years after his second term. The flashbacks make up the greatest part of the story and lead us up through that twelve-year period. Time gaps between each successive flashback are variable, from a few days up to a few years. Hopefully enough clues exist for the reader to place most important events in a time scale.

'High Flight' is a poem written by John Gillespie McGee. Alluded to during the episode 'The Crackpots and These Women', it is the title of both the book referred to throughout the story and the title of the story itself. The full text of the poem is provided at the conclusion of the story.

**

* * *

**

**High Flight**

_He ran his hands reverently over the smooth binding, inhaling the overwhelming scent of fresh ink and knowing that the paper beneath his fingers had never before been creased. The book in his hands hadn't yet had the chance to become dog-eared or well read. It had never been thumbed through or referred to. No one had ever heard this story in this way._

_This was his book. It had taken him most of his life so far to write it. He had been writing it before he even realized it. The story had begun years before his birth and would continue for years after his death. But it was a story that had to be told now, before its characters were forgotten, relegated to dusty shelves beside the history books that they had helped re-write._

_Breathlessly he opened the cover. The black words jumped out at him from the snow-white page._

**

* * *

**

**'Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth  
****And danced the sky on laughter-silvered wings…'**

**The opening lines of a poem penned by a young pilot during the Second World War, their original purpose was to describe the delirious joy of flight. Here, in this book, they are being put to quite a different purpose. Here they are being used to tell the story of what has become known as the 'Bartlet Legacy.' They will attempt to tell what this means and how it endures, even long years after the man himself succumbed to the illness that ravaged his presidency and his life. They are going to be used to tell of a remarkable man and the equally remarkable group of men and women that he gathered around him.**

**Superficially, this may appear to be merely another overview of politics and government. But it is much more than that. It is a story of ties so strong that they transcended deep partisan lines to reshape the nation. It is the story of a group of men and women who never shied away from the good fight, who felt the only way to hit walls was running at full speed, who never gave up asking 'What's next?' But it is still far more than remembrances of a past president. It is a reflection of what is still to come.**

**I was privileged enough to be one of the final initiates into what we affectionately refer to as the Legacy. The word is always capitalized, somehow even in speech. It is a word that means we will hold our ideals above pettiness. It means that we are men and women of honour above all else. It means that we will fight tirelessly for those things we have deemed just. It is a word that means we are part of a select few.**

**Josiah Bartlet was many things. But it must be remembered that first and foremost he was a man. He was born. He lived. He died. But it is not those simple facts that make him a man worth remembering. It is the manner in which he lived the life he was given. That way of living would have made him worth the notice, even if he had never set foot in the Oval Office. That is the sort of man that Jed Bartlet was.**

**It is all we can hope that we should someday aspire to that level of devotion and determination. It is a miracle that this one man, never groomed to be president, rose to the head of our country and managed to ride out the storms that threatened to sink his presidency. It is my privilege to say that I was a student of this man. It is my pleasure to say that he was my friend. And it is my honour to say that he led my country.**

**Oh, and Josh Lyman was right in the end; I am a Republican.**


	2. Welcome

_"I knew it," Josh declared, snapping the book closed. He grinned, "I knew he was a Republican all along. I could sense it. I have a sixth sense about these things. Didn't I always tell you that he was a closet Republican?"_

_"Honestly, Joshua," Donna chided, reaching out to take the book from his hands, "he was never a closet Republican. He never even tried to hide it or anything. He all but told us the first time we met him."_

_

* * *

_

"I'm so glad that you could all make it," Jed greeted them warmly from the top step. He didn't want to take the time to navigate the stairs with the cane that he had finally been forced to start using regularly. He knew they would come to him.

"Honestly, sir," Donna said, hurrying over. "I don't know where you're going to put everyone." She gave him a warm hug, leaving Josh behind to manhandle the bags out of the trunk of their car.

"You got married in my house; you don't have to call me sir," he reminded her as he returned her embrace.

"Sorry," she laughed in response. "I always forget the first time." She held up her first two fingers and raised her right hand. "I won't do it again, Scout's honour."

"Aren't you going to come up and say hello to an old friend?" Jed called down to Josh.

"I was just waiting until after my wife had finished mauling you," he answered, shuffling over. His side was giving him trouble after sitting for so long on the drive out to Manchester.

Donna reached out a hand to swat affectionately at Josh's head as he reached out to take the former president's extended hand. "I'd be nice to your wife, Josh," Abbey warned, wiping her hands on her apron as she came to the door. "We're the ones doing the cooking today."

"She's been threatening to withhold the pie," Jed clarified.

"Donna, if you want to come on back to the kitchen," Abbey said, guiding Donna into the house and ignoring her husband, "the rest of the Sisterhood is already there."

"Are we the last ones here?" she asked anxiously, already moving toward the kitchen.

"We gentlemen have retired away to the den to enjoy our brandy and cigars," Jed told Josh. "I'll have someone bring your bags in and settle them in your room. Sam and Leo should be here soon and then the company will be complete." Jed's eyes twinkled happily as he made his slow way toward the den. It wasn't often that everyone managed to get together.

As the two men made their way down the hall toward the smoky den, the two women were entering the cheerful kitchen. CJ was lounging back against the fridge, a glass of wine in her hand, a streak of flour on her cheek, and an apron tied around her waist. "And so then he told me that he was a Democratic Republican," she finished uproariously, a wide grin splitting her face.

Peals of laughter from the others echoed around the large kitchen. "CJ," Abbey broke in, "don't tell me that I missed you telling the Leighton story again. It's one of my favourites."

"Alex and Sarah hadn't heard it yet," CJ justified. She caught sight of Donna standing behind the former first lady and, setting her glass of wine down on the counter beside her, ambled over to hug her friend.

"What's this I hear about a Pulitzer nomination?" Donna asked, returning the hug. "Something like that wasn't important enough to warrant a phone call? I had to find out like the rest of the country."

CJ pulled away for a second. "You really shouldn't let Josh answer the phone," she declared. "You've been married for eight years and he still doesn't pass on messages."

Donna broke out in a wide smile. "Sounds about right. I spoiled him when we were in the White House. But you'd think that nine years would cure him of the thought that I'm the one who's supposed to take messages."

"Remember," Zoey broke in, "this is Josh Lyman we're talking about here." She looked up from the piecrust she was rolling out on the table. "I'd come over for a hug, but I'm covered in flour."

"Hook yourself up with an apron and a glass of wine," Abbey directed, taking up another rolling pin. "I think that Margaret and CJ have a fairly good handle on slicing the apples. We're almost done with the crusts, but we're going to need tops rolled out too. There should be an extra rolling pin in the second drawer. Sarah?"

"Mom," Zoey reminded, "you completely forgot to introduce Sarah and Alex."

"It's okay," one of the two girls that Donna didn't recognize replied. "I think we're getting pretty used to it by now. I'm Sarah Sutherland."

"And I'm Alexandra Cunningham," said the other, stepping forward to politely offer a hand to Donna. "Alex."

"They're two of Jed's students," Abbey explained. "Jed asked them to stay for the weekend. Girls, as I'm sure you know, this is the recently elected Senator Donnatella Moss-Lyman."

"It's just Donna," Donna reassured them, shaking their hands. "So, how did you two get lucky enough to get Jed as a teacher?"

"We're honestly not quite sure," Sarah answered, blowing a strand of blonde hair out of her eyes. "I wasn't originally even interested in political science. And I hated economics."

**------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

"There's something about him that just sucks you in."

**------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

"And then before you know it you're stuck in the quagmire of political rhetoric with no conceivable end in sight," Toby declared, flicking the ashes from the end of his cigar into the ashtray at his elbow.

"That's awfully strong sentiment, Toby," Jed said as he opened the door and entered the smoky room. Light streamed through the tall windows and illuminated the well-polished woodwork. "Are you still going on about Joselin?"

"Well, look what the cat dragged in," Charlie commented, catching sight of Josh as he stood behind Jed.

"Are you implying that I'm the cat?" Jed asked, settling himself back into his favourite armchair. "Because although felines are noted to be exceptionally sly, it begs to question whether that's merely perception on our part."

"I'm pretty sure that wasn't what I was trying to say," Charlie answered immediately. "I'm pretty sure that I was just trying to say hello to Josh without sounding over eager."

"Mark? Jack? Was that what he was saying?" Jed asked, turning his sharp eyes to the two men who were unfamiliar to Josh.

"Well, sir," one answered, "I'm not quite sure that I want to tempt wandering into the inescapable quagmire of rhetoric, in this case I believe that we must look beyond the obvious connotations of such statements and into the underlying intended meaning."

"Are you mocking me, Jack?" Toby demanded. He turned to Josh, asking, "Was he just mocking me?"

"Josh, I'd like you to meet Mark Goldstein and Jack McCosham, two of the students that I invited to join us this weekend," Jed introduced, gesturing with his cane to the two as he said their names.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Lyman," Jack said politely, stepping forward to shake Josh's hand.

"Mr. Lyman makes me feel old," Josh answered immediately. "It's Josh."

"Political rhetoric is sometimes the only thing keeping you afloat," Toby maintained, not bothering to let Mark greet Josh before starting in on the argument again.

"Maybe when it's sink or swim," Josh broke in as he shook Mark's hand. "But when everything is going fine then it's just going to alienate the general populace who already doesn't trust the politicians that they elect."

"With all due respect, sir," Jack answered, "I think that the electorate elects someone based primarily on the very things that they come to hate. If you'll look back at the Joselin campaign you'll see that he didn't change at all. The voters just realized that what they elected was rhetoric, not action."

"Joselin had a damn good speechwriter and an even better publicist," Toby growled in answer. "That's why he got elected. He didn't even have the rhetoric. He just had people who could trick you into thinking he did. Just look at his early speeches."

"They weren't as well-crafted," Mark answered, "but he had ideas that needed acting on in them. It wasn't until he brought together a team to polish what he was saying that the message got lost. Had he stuck with his old staff, he would have been able to get something done instead of just talking about it."

"Joselin didn't have a single idea worth noting. I mean, my six-year-old kids are better at political strategy," Josh snorted. "I'm surprised that the Republicans managed to hold onto him for as long as they did. He was crazy, even for a Republican." Josh was pouring himself a brandy, but even if he had been watching, he probably still wouldn't have caught the look that flitted across Mark's face.

But he did look up in time to see the look on Jed's face and know exactly why he had brought the four of them to Manchester for the weekend.


	3. Look at Them

_"How did Josh manage to weasel his way into the preface?" Toby growled._

_"It could have been you," CJ answered, leaning to peer over her husband's shoulder, "but you don't show your outward loathing for Republicans quite so much."_

_"Mark's just lucky that vengeance isn't Jewish," Toby scoffed, flipping the page to read the dedication._

_

* * *

_

**This book is dedicated to the original members of the Legacy, the ones who taught us what it really meant and the ones who held it together after the legend himself was gone.**

**I'd like to extend a special thanks to Toby Ziegler whose books inspired me. And, although I know well that vengeance isn't Jewish, this hopefully saves me in case he ever decides to convert.**

* * *

"So, when are we going to see this second book or yours, Toby?" Leo asked as they all filed into the large dining room and took their places around the big oval table.

Toby sighed, passing a hand over his bald head in frustration. CJ answered for him. "His publishers are being sticky about the release date this time around. I think that it's because your book and Jed's book all come out at around the same time, Leo. We aren't even getting advance copies."

"You don't think that it's because his last book almost cracked the best seller list and his wife is up for a Pulitzer?" Charlie pointed out, pushing Zoey's chair in and then settling in next to his wife.

"This isn't the kind of shop talk that I was expecting," Sam commented.

"There will be no shop talk whatsoever this evening," Abbey declared, sinking down into her seat at the foot of the table, "or you will get no pie."

"I'd be careful," Jed cautioned. "She's serious when she talks about withholding the dessert. You can usually get around the other stuff." Abbey gave Jed a warning glare, but he just grinned and wagged his finger at her. "I know you too well."

"Mark, would you like to say the blessing?" Abbey asked, passing the breadbasket down to him.

The ungainly young man stood awkwardly, extending his hands out over the basket. "Baruch atah Adonai elohynu melech ha-olam ha-mo-tzi lechem min ha-aretz," he intoned self-consciously before moving to his half-filled wine glass. "Baruch atah Adonai elohynu melech ha-olam bo-ray p'ree ha-gafen." Then he moved to hold his hands out generally over the entire table. "Baruch atah Adonai elohynu melech ha-olam sher-ha-kol neeh-yeh bid-yah-ro." His face red, he dropped thankfully back down into his seat.

"Thank you, Mark," Jed said. "Alex, your turn." Her face flushed almost instantly as she pushed herself to her feet. "You know which way."

Clasping her hands and bowing her head, she shyly said, "Benedic nos Domine et haec tua dona, quae sumuus sumturi de largitate tua per Christum Dominum nostrum." Her hand, along with Jed's and a few others, moved to make the sign of the cross as she finished, "In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen."

As she sank back down into her seat, the food began to make its smooth path around the table. Sam couldn't help reflecting that it was the first time they had gathered around the big table that Jed hadn't said the grace. And Toby usually said the Hebrew blessing over bread. He and Leo had arrived only a few minutes before supper. How much had the two of them missed while they were held up at Mallory's?

"So," Sam commented, scooping out a mound of mashed potatoes, "what did we miss?"

"Girls gossiping in the kitchen," Josh told him disdainfully.

"And men making the house smell like smoke," Donna countered with a sniff.

"And all of the shop talk that you're going to hear until after we're done eating and the dishes are done," Abbey told him firmly.

"What else are we supposed to talk about?" Toby growled good-humouredly, buttering his roll.

There was a dangerous twinkle in Jed's eyes as he answered lightly, "I'm sure that I could think of something."

Everyone, from the former senior staffers to the current students, stifled their groans. They all recognized that look. "Well, sir, I was hoping that Mr McGarry could tell us something about his upcoming book," Alex said quickly. "You never know when it might come in handy as background for a thesis, sir," she added with a grin at Jed.

"Sir?" Josh questioned. "How come they get still get to call you sir? When we call you sir we get punished."

"No, Josh," Jed responded. "When you call me sir you get the privilege of being educated about the reproductive habits of the insects of the Brazilian rainforest. They call me sir because I haven't managed to convince them that I'm not their professor this weekend."

"Well," Leo answered, "I'm not telling anyone about anything until you start calling us by our proper names, none of this titles thing."

"Of course, sir." That earned Sarah a warning look from Leo. "Leo," she corrected herself swiftly.

"Sir Leo?" Margaret repeated. "Don't start calling him that or he'll get even more of a swelled head than he already has." She reached out a hand to tenderly pat her boss's hand as she teased him.

"And don't bother asking me about the book. I'm sure that it's been lost somewhere in her filing system," Leo retorted. "I tried to hire her an assistant but we went through three in the first week because they couldn't deal with her system or her computer."

"I don't need an assistant," Margaret answered pointedly. "A maid, however, I could use."

"You mean to say that you haven't hired your wife a maid yet?" Abbey exclaimed. Leo mumbled something in answer. "What was that? Speak up, old man," she directed.

"He said that he wouldn't need a maid if his wife didn't work as his assistant," Josh supplied helpfully. "Oh, Leo, you're in trouble now," he added as he realized what Leo had said.

"Leo McGarry, you're just lucky to have found a wife who's willing to work with you," Donna told him firmly. "And admit that you wouldn't want another assistant. Those first few weeks after you started helping Sam, when Margaret was still with the Justice Department, you went through assistants even faster than Josh."

"Did it ever occur to you that there might have been a reason I didn't say that out loud?" Leo questioned, ignoring Donna to turn on Josh.

"Maybe," Josh answered. "But it's fun to get them all riled up."

"Did it ever occur to you that you probably shouldn't have said that out loud either?" CJ pointed out, raising her eyebrows to look across the table at Josh.

Josh gulped a little and tried to change the topic, "So, Toby, how's the book coming?"

Toby stared at him blankly, almost as if he still couldn't believe how much of an idiot Josh was. "I thought we had moved past that in the first thirty seconds of the conversation. It's at the publisher. They're being ridiculous about it. End of story."

"Gee, sir," Jack quipped, "I hope that your book is a little more verbose than that. Succinctness is a necessary quality from time to time, but that's exceedingly far past what could ever be considered obligatory."

"Drop the titles," Leo reminded.

"He's mocking me," Toby countered. "When he's mocking me he has to call me sir."

"You know, he mocks you a lot, Toby," Josh noted. "That takes guts, man," he told Jack.

Leo leaned over to Jed as Jack and Toby started sparring back and forth across the table, the bowl of corn a buffer between them. "These aren't just any kids," he accused Jed softly.

"No," he whispered back. "Look at them. What do you see?"

"Danielle Steele writes plot-deficient stories for the barely literate and she still manages to make it to the bedside table of the majority of women," Alex was asserting. "The best-seller lists are reflections of popularity, not content or workmanship. It's a pop culture gauge, not a device for literary criticism."

"You dare compare Danielle Steele to Charles Dickens?" Sam wondered, absently twirling his fork between his fingers.

"Simply because Dickens lived in a different era doesn't mean that he wasn't immune to writing for profit and not for craft," Jack responded. "Dickens and Dumas, considered great writers now, were both paid by the word. Would their stories have been classics had they not been profit-driven?"

"The economy of fine art isn't worth considering," Toby retorted. "When you're looking at Dickens or a Rembrandt you don't want to see the financer behind it."

"I'll have to let that one go on account of the 'no shop talk' rule," Jack declared. "I want pie."

"They're us," Leo answered.


	4. Sanctuary

**The Surly Bonds of Earth**

**Anyone can find the background for Josiah Bartlet; it's written in history books and summarised in encyclopaedias the world over. But what's harder to find out, what isn't written and can only be understood through interviews, is the story of his life. What made an unassuming economics professor who once considered priesthood run for the highest office in the nation?**

**Perhaps it was the fact that he never once expected to win.**

* * *

Standing with her arms submerged in a sink full of soapy water, CJ commented, "The four of them were more than a little shell-shocked when they walked in and saw that not only were they spending the weekend with the former president who happens to be their professor, but also the rest of us."

"You mean that he didn't tell them?" Donna asked, carefully returning the plate she had been drying to the cupboard.

"I think that he was intending to tell them," CJ answered, "but they got lost on the way and Toby, Margaret, and I got here early."

"They were nervous enough when they walked in, but when Sarah saw CJ, she almost started hyperventilating," Margaret added, putting the last of the leftover food in the large refrigerator.

"It's like the first time that Ainsley met Jed," Donna groaned.

"Are the three of you finished yet?" Josh whined, coming to stand in the kitchen doorway. "We have to play nice until you get back."

"Just wait until tomorrow morning when it's your turn, mi amore," CJ warned. "Then you'll find out just how long it takes to clean up after fifteen people."

"They've got a helipad; you'd think they'd have a dishwasher" Josh mused, coming to perch on the edge of the table.

"Usually it's just the two of them out here," Donna reminded him, shooing him off the table. "I think that you, Toby, and Sam are on breakfast duty tomorrow."

"I don't do breakfast," Toby grumbled, coming to join Josh. "Give me a couple of gallons of black coffee and I'm happy. Make Mark and the boy take care of things."

"The boy?" CJ inquired, raising her eyebrows.

"Him," Toby agreed.

"He was mocking you again, wasn't he?"

"I think that Abbey has them scheduled for lunch," Donna responded, handing towels off to both Toby and Josh. "Now, if you intend to stay in here and escape whatever lecture is being given in there, you've got to work."

"That's not fair," Josh groused, crossing his arms across his chest and staring at the towel in Donna's hands.

"What do you mean, that's not fair?"

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"If you want sanctuary, you've got to work for it."

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"Working for sanctuary?" Leo repeated incredulously. "You've got twenty Cubans clinging to a couple of pieces of plywood that they've somehow managed to lash together and they're trying to swim across the Gulf of Mexico during a storm and you're telling me that's not enough work?"

"These are people coming through hell in hopes of reaching the Promised Land," Abbey pointed out. "And we can't even offer them asylum. You've got people fleeing from China in boats that are barely seaworthy, packed in a hold for weeks with hundreds of other desperate people and we can't even ask what situations they're coming from. We can't stop to consider why they're willing to put themselves through it."

"Immigration laws are enacted for a reason," Mark argued. "If you throw open the borders, then you're allowing for a flood of unskilled immigrants, or worse, terrorists."

"Now look," Sam answered, "we're not saying we want to throw the borders wide open. We're saying that it's happened before that people honestly running from intolerable situations are being sent back. And it's usually even worse once their escape has failed."

"Some families in Mexico are living so far below the poverty line that they can't even see it, and we don't let them into the country. If they manage to make it past the barbed wire, the guards, and the dogs, we have no qualms about sending them right back." Mark leaned forward in his seat, resting his hands on his knees. "I just don't see what the difference is between a bunch of Cubans and a bunch of Mexicans. That's all that I'm saying."

"Then why bring terrorists into the equation?" Jed questioned. "That's a completely different kettle of fish."

"I thought we had to play nice," Toby observed, re-entering the room.

"Did they kick you out or try to put you to work?" Abbey teased.

"Put us to work," Toby supplied with a sigh.

"And Josh would rather do dishes than be in here?" Jed wondered.

"With all due respect, sir," Alex answered, "you did begin with a lecture on the radicalism of Luther. We only started in on sanctuary and refugees after the two of them left."

"You've been oddly silent on both of those topics," Jed noted.

"Yeah, for once," Jack snorted. "Usually you can't get her to shut up," he explained.

"Well, Alli, I always told you that you'd never be able to handle yourself around the big boys," Mark said, only half-teasing.


	5. Big Shoes

_"Governor Seaborn, there's a telephone call for you."_

_"Line one?" he questioned, pushing the button once the aide had nodded and disappeared out of his office. "This is Governor Sam Seaborn."_

_"Have you read it?"_

_"Josh, you called me in the middle of the afternoon to ask me if I'd read the book?" Sam asked in disbelief. "I'm the governor of California. You don't think that I might have more important things to be doing in the middle of the afternoon?"_

_"You're reading it now, aren't you," he guessed excitedly._

_

* * *

_

Jed found her in the library, fingers trailing reverently along the spines of the books. "I thought that everyone had gone to bed hours ago," he said, sinking down into an armchair before the empty fireplace.

"I couldn't sleep," she told him honestly.

"Neither could I," he admitted. "I'm sure that I'll regret being down here in the morning; I always do when I sneak down in the middle of the night." He pointed with his cane to the chair across from him. "If the two of us are going to be up, we might as well be comfortable."

"Yes, sir," she answered, crossing the room to fold herself into the leather armchair.

"We're really going to have to work on that sir thing, Alex. The others had no problem dropping it. Even the people who used to work for me don't call me sir anymore."

She sighed, resting her curly head on her hands for a moment. "Is there something bothering you?" Jed asked, leaning forward to place a hand on her shoulder.

"I just don't know why I'm here," she confided, lifting her head to look at Jed. "I mean, I can see why you brought the others."

"Can you now?" he asked, leaning back into the overstuffed chair.

"They're kindred spirits with your staff: Sarah and CJ; Mark and Josh; Jack and Toby," she supplied, settling back further into her own leather recliner, wrapping her arms around the knees she had drawn up to her chest. "Am I right?"

"Not entirely correct," Jed answered, reverting back to his professor mode. "But kindly explain how you drew those conclusions."

"Sarah and CJ are movers and shakers, but the politics will always be secondary. They're just as concerned about the syntax and delivery as the message. I thought maybe Sam for a while, but Sarah's far too cynical and worldly for that." She checked, "How am I doing so far?"

"Well, I can't deny that. What's next?"

"I guess Mark and Josh, although Josh would probably just as soon die as admit he's kindred with a Republican," she noted with a laugh. Jed joined in. They both knew the statement wasn't all that far from the truth. "I feel sorry for Mark," she continued. "He's trying to repress his Republican leanings so hard for fear of the ravenous pack of wolves that your staff would become. In that way, he's very like Josh, always trying to put jus the right spin on something but never quite managing to make it past the superficialities without getting trapped in what he actually thinks."

"Two for two."

"You mean that Jack isn't for Toby?" she asked. Almost immediately she followed with, "That sentence sounded so unbelievably wrong."

"You know, I thought Jack and Toby for a while too," Jed admitted. "It wasn't until you all got here that I realized differently. The two of them are equally matched sparring partners, but there's something else to Jack, an essence that isn't Toby, could never be Toby."

"Then who, sir?" she asked. "It's not Donna or Margaret. It couldn't be Sam or your wife. Charlie?"

"Jack is gifted with the same ability to see the big picture and simultaneously focus on the essential details that you need in a good chief of staff," Jed explained. "I really didn't realize it until after he and Toby started in on the thing for the first time. But if there were to be anyone for him, it would have to be Leo."

"I guess that I can see that," she replied, stifling a yawn. "But that still doesn't explain why I'm here. I can't help but think about what Mark said earlier, even if he was only teasing."

"What? That you can't handle yourself with the big boys?" Jed repeated. Alex nodded, eyes downcast. "You can't tell me that you actually think that's true."

"I listen to their debates and mull them over, but by the time I realize the fallacies in their arguments or the flaws in their judgment, it's usually too late. They intimidate me, sir," she told him. "Normal kids have basketball players as their heroes."

"Am I to assume by that last statement that you never aspired to the NBA?" Jed inquired wryly, eyes sweeping over her petite frame.

"No, sir," she answered, smiling shyly back at him. "I was the weird kid who dreamed of being president but was scared to get up in front of a class to give a presentation."

"Did you know that I get to pick the grad students I take on?" Jed asked. "It's one of the perks of being a former president whose students have to be vetted.""

"I assumed that we had needed background checks," she admitted. "But I didn't know that we were handpicked. All I knew was that one of my other professors handed me an application one day and told me that he thought I'd enjoy the immense opportunities that the program offered. I didn't find out who the teacher was until we had our first meeting."

"That's why you almost wound up flat on your back on my office floor?"

"Yes, sir. I hadn't prepared myself for opening the door and finding President Bartlet sitting his shirtsleeves with my academic record in his hands."

"You remember what sort of questions were on that application?"

"The normal things: my GPA, my goals, write an essay detailing the influence of the early Puritan morals on the workings of the modern American government."

"You remember word for word what the essay topic was," Jed mused. She wasn't quite sure if it was meant as a question or a comment. "You wrote a thesis attacking the Puritan standards to which our social system is bound and the stifling restrictions to which our justice system is still subjected. You proposed discarding the better half of the legal precedent in this country on that basis alone."

"I did, sir," she answered.

"I believe that as a result of that essay you were called before the chancellor to further explain yourself," Jed continued, raising his eyebrows at her.

"I was, sir." Her face turned red and she ducked her head. "Some of the members of the board of governors wanted me expelled. I was surprised when I got an acceptance letter from your program after that."

"Not many people know this," Jed began conspiratorially, "but when I was twenty-six I was almost kicked out of the London School of Economics for writing a paper supporting the deregulation of Far East trade barriers. One paper shouldn't necessarily be enough to break a person. Especially considering I know that you were just trying to make some noise."

"How did you know that?" she asked, confused.

"I picked you out of the crowd. That application letter was a way for me to see what you were really made of and start the security checks. You were all but in before you put pen to paper."

"But how…"

"Your first year, you had Egarter tongue-tied in front of his class. Second year, you scored top marks on your Comparative Policy paper. Your last year, let's just say that I had recruiting agents out watching."

Her eyes were wide as she realised the implications that his words held. Jed continued, "All of the professors keep an eye out for me. I must admit that I've always tended to choose people who reminded me of the people you met today. But I don't think the similarities have ever been as striking as they are between the four of you."

"The four of us?"

"The four of you," he repeated firmly. "Now use your deductive powers. I know full well that they are not to be mocked."

"I guess that it's a process of elimination," she sighed. "Well, it's not CJ, Josh, or Leo because three of a kind would be a little too much. And Occam's Razor more or less precludes that sort of thing," she mused, twisting a strand of hair around her finger.

"You haven't eliminated very many people."

She shrugged. "I really don't know, sir."

"You're sitting in the man's library in the middle of the night with your pyjamas on," Leo stated, coming to fill the doorway. "I think that it's time you got rid of the sir."

"Were we keeping you up?" Alex asked, jumping up to offer Leo the chair. He accepted and she settled herself on the thick rug before the empty fireplace.

"I saw the light on my way back from the bathroom and couldn't help but investigate," Leo answered.

"She was trying to make the same matches you made at supper. She's stuck though."

"On who?"

Jed pushed himself upright, letting his cane take a good portion of his weight. "I think this is my cue to get myself back up to bed before my wife comes to investigate. Remember to turn out the lights before you two turn in for the night." He made his way out of the library and they could hear his cane tapping its way up the stairs.

"I never got the chance to tell you what a pleasure it is to meet you," she offered, moving on Leo's gestured urging to take the chair that Jed had vacated.

"Don't try to change the subject. I'm guessing that the one person you can't manage to fathom is yourself? The others really weren't that hard. I'm pretty sure that Josh is quite possibly the only one who's still clueless," Leo chuckled. "In fact, I'm pretty sure that he still hasn't figured out that Mark's one of the dreaded Republicans."

He crossed his arms across his chest and rested one slippered foot on the other flannel-covered knee. "You on the other hand, were more of a puzzle."

"Sir?" she questioned when he paused.

"I thought Sam at first," he said. "You're idealistic enough, but somehow that wasn't right. I've heard you speak; it's not the same poetic naivety. You're on the attack. So then I thought Donna. But you couldn't be her."

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" she asked, a smile playing over her face.

"You are who you are," Leo told her, standing to leave. "And no pressure, but you've got some pretty big shoes to fill."

"I'm sorry…"

"You have a best friend?" She nodded. "Would you trust them with your life?" She nodded again. "That's your chief of staff."


	6. Moving On

**To Dance the Sky**

**It is often wondered whether Franklin Roosevelt would have been elected had he had to run the veritable gauntlet of television reporters and public scrutiny that today's politicians are subjected to. Would the American public have elected a president who was confined to a wheelchair?**

**Perhaps the closest that we can come to answering that question is to look at the second Bartlet campaign. The American public elected a president with a potentially debilitating medical condition that had been originally concealed from them. This was in no small part to the tireless work of the original members of the Legacy. **

**It is perhaps this campaign, more so than the first, which truly founded the Legacy.**

* * *

"Josiah Bartlet," Abbey began sternly, a suppressed grin lighting up her eyes, "if you wouldn't go traipsing about the house in the middle of the night you might be able to drag your sorry self out of bed in time to read your paper before breakfast."

"Me?" He pointed to himself, assuming an air of innocence.

"Don't even try that with me," she answered, lovingly swatting him upside the head with the confiscated paper. "You can read your paper after breakfast."

"Sarah is having her article published today. Danny gave her a chunk of prime editorial space in exchange for an exclusive about studying under a former president," Jed explained, reaching out in an attempt to take the paper from her. "It's not every day that a former student gets something published in the Washington Post."

"In that case…" Abbey snapped the paper, flipping expertly to the editorial section. She looked at Jed over the top of the paper.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Eat your breakfast."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Who needs breakfast?" Toby growled, squinting at the sun pouring into the kitchen in their California home. "All I need are a couple of gallons of black coffee."

"Eat," CJ ordered pushing the plate across the small table towards him. "Or I don't give you the paper."

Toby waved his newspaper in front of her. "Empty threat, Claudia Jean. I've already got my paper."

"Not that paper," she said, pulling another one out from underneath her chair. "This paper. It's got Sarah's thing in it." Toby grabbed at it, but CJ was faster, shoving it behind her back. "Now eat your breakfast."

"You've been taking lessons from Abbey Bartlet," he grumbled, sinking a fork into his eggs. Beneath his breath, he muttered something uncharitable about the former first lady and his wife.

"Who do you think made sure we got the paper?" CJ asked sweetly. "And who do you think controls said paper at this moment?"

Toby grumbled something else around his mouthful of eggs.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"What was that? I couldn't quite make it out."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Donna spit her mouthful of toothpaste into the sink. "I said, Sarah's thing was in the paper today. You should read it."

"I hope she took my advice and did an Op-ed piece on what the Republicans are optimistically calling their new strategy," Josh called from the bedroom, buttoning the cuffs on his shirt.

"She's been aiming to get a job at the Post since she graduated. You really think that with a Republican president and a Republican Senate Danny could take her on with a trial piece like that?" Donna pointed out, wandering over to loop Josh's tie around his neck.

"Danny's the editor. He can do whatever he wants." Josh fumbled with the fabric for a moment. "You wanna come and do that thing you do?" He gestured to the wrinkled strip of fabric hanging around his neck.

"You used to be able to tie a tie before I came along," she pointed out, making short work of the knot. "I've spoiled you, Josh Lyman."

"You still don't bring me coffee," he whined. "And now you don't bring me the paper either."

"Not when I want to read it first I don't," she retorted, evaluating herself in the mirror. "You'll have the Post waiting for you in your office."

"You have the Post at your office, too," he griped, shrugging on his suit jacket.

"You know very well that I've got a meeting with the Minority Leader first thing and then I'm in committee meetings all day," she said sweetly. "You'll make sure that Joan and Noah get their lunch money?"

"I don't see why you won't let me make them lunch," Josh complained.

"Josh, I don't trust you to make your own lunch, never mind lunch for our ten-year-old children. Just give them their lunch money and make sure they make it to school on time." Donna gathered up the papers she had spread around the room, neatly slipping them into her briefcase.

"I'm betting that when Leo was Jed's chief of staff he never had to take the girls to school or give them lunch money."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Last time I checked the two of them weren't married."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"What do you mean the last time you checked?" Leo asked with an air of suffering and grudgingly lowered his paper.

"I mean, the last time that I asked him they weren't married yet," Margaret explained, peeling the paper off her bran muffin.

"You don't think that getting married would be something important enough to tell people about?"

"Eat your grapefruit. And remember that we didn't tell anyone for nearly a month."

Leo sighed and jabbed at the offending piece of fruit with a spoon. "There were extenuating circumstances," he sighed.

"If by extenuating circumstances you mean not wanting Jed to win the pool," Margaret returned.

"There was a pool?" Leo asked.

"Don't try that innocent thing on me, Leo," she warned. "I've been your assistant for more years than I've been your wife. I can tell when you're faking it."

"What about Donna going into labour? Was that not extenuating enough?"

"Donna went into labour two weeks into your little charade. You even made me take off my wedding rings when I went in to visit so that Jed wouldn't find out." Margaret accompanied her words with a look that used to stop diplomats in their tracks.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"It wasn't that bad."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Did you read it?" Sarah moaned, burying her face in her hands. "What ever made me think that I could possibly write for the Post?"

"Perhaps the fact that you've dreamed of it your entire life?" Alex asked, waving a doughnut near her face. "Now come on, you've got to eat something."

Sarah showed her face for long enough to take a bite of the pastry, not even bothering to take it from Alex's hand. "Mark'll see it," she groaned around the mouthful of cream filling and chocolate frosting.

"You didn't attack him. You didn't attack the Republican Party. You attacked a piece of legislation that is never going to pass because it's just plain bad politics," Alex explained, taking a bite herself before offering it back to Sarah.

"It's a piece of legislation that's the pet project of President Nicholson. There's no way that I'll ever get a job at a respectable paper now."

"And Inside Politics isn't a respectable paper? Its editor is a former presidential press secretary, not to mention a Pulitzer Prize winner."

"Inside Politics is just a newsmagazine. And if I want to go anywhere with this thing, it's not Inside Politics or the Washington Times that I need. The Post is THE newspaper in this town. And I just blew my one big chance."

Alex reached for the phone, threatening, "Wait until I tell CJ that her baby is JUST a newsmagazine."

"You wouldn't dare," Sarah asserted, grabbing at the phone nonetheless.

"I'll consider not telling CJ what you said, if you go take a shower and get dressed. We're going out to celebrate." Sarah opened her mouth to protest but Alex just shoved the rest of the doughnut in. "Now go."

Sarah sighed, removed the excess food from her mouth, and traipsed off toward the bathroom of her small apartment. The water had no sooner started running in the shower when the phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Is this Sarah Sutherland's residence?" the voice on the other end of the line asked.

"It is; may I ask who is calling?"

"This is the human resource department of the Washington Times calling in regards to your job application," the woman answered, mistaking Alex for Sarah

"Could you hold on for one moment, please," Alex answered breathlessly. "I'll just go and get Miss Sutherland."

Carefully putting the woman on hold, she set the phone down and sprinted for the bathroom door. "Sarah, get out here right now. The Washington Times is on the phone."

Not even bothering to turn off the water, Sarah flew out of the bathroom, a towel hastily wrapped around herself.

Just as she was picking up the phone, the second line beeped. She hesitated for a second before taking the call, but hit the flashing button to pick up the second line. "Sarah Sutherland," she answered, trying to feign a calm that she didn't feel.

"Please hold for Daniel Concannon of the Washington Post."


	7. Willpower

_"We have the great pleasure to have in the studio today CJ Cregg, former press secretary for the Bartlet administration, founder of the popular newsmagazine Inside Politics and Pulitzer Prize winning journalist," the host announced excitedly, striding across the stage to offer his hand to the elegant woman before him._

_"Well, Gordon," CJ greeted him warmly, "I see that you've been reading my resume." The two shook hands and settled into the studio chairs. CJ crossed her long legs and reclined back in the chair, as ever eminently comfortable in front of the cameras._

_"So, Ms Cregg, how does it make you feel that even now, more than twenty years after the Bartlet administration ended, that you're still hailed as his former press secretary?"_

_"I don't think that it's a reflection of my skill," she answered candidly. "I think that it's a measure of President Bartlet's."_

_"That same sentiment comes across in High Flight, a book by up-and-coming political operative Mark Goldstein." On the screen behind them, the cover of the book flashed up. "Do you have any comments about Mr Goldstein's book?"_

_"Well," CJ responded, leaning forward a bit, "I don't know if I'd say that he's an up-and-coming political operative.. I've known that he has a fine political mind since the day that President Bartlet first introduced us; other people are just starting to figure it out now."_

_"Goldstein's book talks of the 'Bartlet Legacy'," Gordon explained for the audience members. "Could you explain what exactly that phrase means, Ms Cregg?" _

* * *

"What's this I hear about the Senate Minority Leader retiring after this term?" Jed asked, his voice weak but his mind still sharp.

"He's been thinking about it for a year or so now," Josh broke in excitedly, nearly bouncing off his chair. "He and Donna have been working…" He cut himself off abruptly, realizing that perhaps he shouldn't be saying too much about it.

Jed's eyes were sparkling excitedly. "Is the gag order my wife's or yours?" he asked, his voice unable to convey his enthusiasm and happiness.

"A little of both," Josh told him. "Donna and Walliser don't want too many people to know about it until everything's set in place. She's been chairing more and more committees since they first started talking and he's been passing as much off to her as he can. Her profile still isn't quite high enough, but that might help her come election time because she won't have as much baggage to carry around."

"Do you regret that it isn't you?"

"Maybe from time to time," he admitted, "but you and I both know that I'd probably have messed it up the first day by insulting someone. Donna's much better at the whole public image thing. I stay behind the scenes and screw things up from there."

"Sounds about right," Jed commented faintly, leaning back against the pillows as his strength started to fail him.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"How did you hear about the Minority Leader anyway?"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"He's a friend of my chief of staff," Sam answered. "I knew that he was looking at you, Donna, but I didn't want to say anything in case it fell through."

"There are still a lot of things that could go wrong; Josh could open his mouth, for example," Donna pointed out happily. "But we're pretty sure that it'll happen. This is what we've been working towards."

"He's been in there an awful long time," Margaret fussed worriedly, glancing over at the closed door leading to the library. As Jed had become weaker and weaker, it had been converted into a bedroom for him. The library had always been his favourite room in the house.

"It hasn't been that long," Leo told her. "Abbey's a stickler with the stopwatch."

"When is everyone else supposed to get here?" Donna asked nervously. When they got the summons out to Manchester, they had all hurried out as fast as they could. Jed seemed to be in good spirits and as healthy as he had been in months, but he had asked for them. It instilled a feeling of urgency in everyone.

"CJ and Toby are on their way down from DC. The girls and their families went into town to bring something back to eat and to get the kids out of the house for a while," Margaret ticked off efficiently. She was glad to have something to do. It occupied her mind. "Mark and Sarah went to pick up Jack at the airport."

"Alex?" Sam asked. He knew that the girl had become one of the closest to Jed; he had stuck with his position at the university for an extra year so that she could finish her master's degree with him. She had been the last student Jed had chosen, a year behind the other three he had brought home that weekend.

"Probably somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean," Margaret told him.

"Wasn't she supposed to be defending her thesis sometime this week?" Sam wondered.

"Oh, God," Donna said, dropping her head into her hands, "that's right. I didn't even think of that when I called her."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You called her?"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Of course, someone called her," Abbey reassured Jed, leaning over to adjust the flow of liquid from his IV bag.

"You're sure that someone called her?" he repeated, feebly swatting her away as she tried to fuss over him.

"Donna said she would do it," Abbey reassured him. It worked and Jed relaxed. He knew that if Donna had given her word that she would do it, that it was better than done. "Now get some rest. The others will be getting back soon."

Jed nodded, finding that he didn't have the strength for words, and drifted away into sleep. Abbey checked on a few more things, and then quietly left, leaving the door cracked open behind her.

"Is he sleeping?" someone asked anxiously as she exited. She nodded her head.

"Could you give us the room?" Leo asked firmly, bringing back memories of their days in the White House. Everyone swiftly vacated the room. They all knew better than to argue with Leo when he used a tone like that.

"Oh, Leo," Abbey said once they were alone. He opened his arms to embrace the wife of his best friend as the man slept in the next room. It sounded like the plot for one of those cheesy soap operas that Margaret watched from time to time. "I don't know if I'm ready to lose him."

"You think that's what this is?" Leo asked. He had figured that's what it was but hadn't wanted to admit it.

Leo started with another question, but as he said the words, he knew it was an answer. "He's calling us back to say goodbye." It was exactly what Jed was doing.

"I don't know how much longer he's going to hold on. The priest was here yesterday," Abbey said brokenly, resting her head on Leo's shoulder. "I expected him to be gone half a dozen times already. I think sheer willpower is the only thing…" Her voice broke and she couldn't continue.

"Sheer willpower is the only reason that he's done half of the things that he's done," Leo answered, guiding her over to the couch. Her hair had gone completely grey and he suddenly realized for the first time how old they all really were. Even Sam, whose boyish good looks had seemed as though they would never fade, was grey at the temples.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I don't know what I'm going to do."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You're going to walk into that room and pretend absolutely nothing is wrong, do you hear me?" Toby said firmly, his eyes wandering away from the road for a second. "You're going to pretend that it's just one more time in front of the press."

"Toby," CJ said, her voice stricken, "I don't know if I can do it. This man is like a second father to me. He came to my father's funeral even though he had never met the man before." She dabbed at the corners of her red eyes with a tissue. "He walked me down the aisle."

Toby shoulder-checked and pulled over to the side of the road. He turned to face her, taking her hand in his. "CJ, look at me."

She turned her head to look into his eyes. She saw the same barely suppressed grief that she had seen only once before, when Josh was in surgery after Rosslyn. He was barely in control and they both knew it. "We're going to be there soon. Just one more time in front of the press, okay?"

She sniffed, nodding.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Just one more time in front of the press."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"The press?" Jack broke in nervously, all but stepping between Mark and Sarah as they reassured each other. "No one mentioned any press."

"They're camped outside the airport," Mark told him. "They were on the road from the farm too but the state police kicked them off."

"Legally I don't think that they can do that," Jack said, trying to distract himself.

"Look, you've got the governor-elect of California, the senior senator for Connecticut, the attorney general for New Hampshire, and a whole slew of other people flying in to sit vigil at a former president's bedside," Sarah pointed out. "I think that it's a nightmare from a security standpoint."

"I'm just saying," Jack maintained, noting that Sarah hadn't said 'to sit vigil at a former president's deathbed'. It was good that no one was using that term yet. "You're off the record I'm assuming."

"I'm off the record," Sarah said, sounding a little indignant. "The Post is just my job; this is more important."

"Look, when I'm nervous I run off at the mouth," Jack reminded her. "I didn't mean anything by it."

"I know," she sighed. "Things are just a little tense. Everyone dropped everything to get here. Sam cancelled everything and hopped on the first plane that he could get. Josh pulled Donna out of a committee meeting. I think that it's a good thing the twins are on a band trip or they probably would have forgotten about them."

"She walked out on a chance to cover Nicholson's Indiana trip," Mark added, jerking his thumb at Sarah. They neared the glass doors and saw the group of reporters waiting outside. "Are you ready to brave the fire?"

And then they were outside, fighting their way through the questioning group to the SUV that had been parked as close to the doors as possible.


	8. Family by Fire

**Laughter-Silvered Wings**

**From merely examining the administration and its immediate aftermath, very few differences between the Bartlet administration and previous administrations can be seen. Following the precedent set by previous presidents, the President retired to his Manchester home to spend some time with his family before going on a speaking tour. Some of his staff moved on to other things. Some of them stayed in politics.**

**But it is not the immediate aftermath that is impressive. It's more so the later achievements of those closest to the administration, most of them long after the coattails of President Bartlet had been shed.**

* * *

"Democratic presidential hopeful Roger Merrell's campaign director Jack McCosham is the latest in a string of notable names to arrive at former President Bartlet's Manchester farm in the past eight hours," the anchor remarked. "He joins California governor-elect Sam Seaborn, Senator Donna Moss-Lyman, Pulitzer Prize winner CJ Cregg, New Hampshire attorney general Charles Young, Junior Counsel to President Nicholson Mark Goldstein, and the extended Bartlet family along with other notable figures from the former administration."

"Turn it off," Josh demanded. Someone hurried to turn off CNN, the almost constant companion of everyone in the room.

"Josh Lyman demanding that CNN be turned off?" Donna joked half-heartedly, trying to relieve some of the tension. The three former students had only just arrived and Jack had been hurriedly ushered into Jed's room.

The attempt to tease fell flat. "Has anyone heard from Alex?" Sarah asked anxiously.

"They're circling the airport and waiting for the weather to clear so that they can land. They're looking at re-routing," Margaret supplied. The girl had been beside herself when she phoned, desperate for some more information than the sketchy message she had received.

"What about her dissertation?" Donna inquired nervously.

"They were just waiting for the results when she got your message," Margaret reassured her. Donna breathed a sigh of relief. "I guess that she wanted to leave as soon as they told her. It took everyone there to convince her to stay until the evaluators got back."

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"I hope that she gets here soon."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jack shivered, pulling his thin coat closer around himself and watched the snow swirling around the light. "I hope so too," he said, clearing some of the snow off the hanging swing. "You should go in and get something to eat."

Sarah nodded, turning to go inside. "You eaten already?"

"Yeah," he answered, "I just finished." She nodded again, brushing the gathered snow off her shoulders and stepping into the warm house.

Jack wiped off the rest of the snow and sank down onto the swing, the chains groaning beneath his weight. He leaned his head back against the hard edge of wood and idly pushed himself back and forth, the only sound the creaking of the chains and the whistling of the wind.

The door opened and Donna stepped out, a warm afghan wrapped around her shoulders. "Is there room for one more?" she asked, crossing the wide porch.

Jack brushed off the rest of the snow so that Donna could sit. "It's all yours," he answered.

She sank down wordlessly, clutching her blanket a little closer. "How're you holding up?" she asked blandly.

He shrugged. "I feel like an interloper, that I shouldn't be intruding on this thing. I mean, this should be a family thing."

"Half of the people in there wouldn't be counted as family by normal standards," Donna replied with a sigh.

"Maybe not family by blood," Jack reassured her, "but family nonetheless. You guys all went through hell together during the administration, and then came back through the other way. I'd say that you're family by fire."

"Family by fire," Donna repeated softly, shivering a little in the chill air.

"Family by fire," Jack maintained. "I'm just trespassing."

"You are not just trespassing," she asserted, some of her usual vigour returning to her voice. "He called you here, just like he called the rest of us. If that doesn't say something, I don't know what else you need to hear." It was good to have something else to focus her attention on for the moment, even something as trivial as this. It occupied her mind.

Jack sighed. "If you say so."

"If she says what?" Leo asked, joining them outside.

"He doesn't think that he's family," Donna explained when Jack remained silent.

"Josh was wondering where you went," Leo said, inclining his head back towards the door. "I think that he wants to give Noah and Joan a call."

Donna stood, hurrying inside. Leo drifted over to lean on the railing not far from the swing, staring out through the swirling snow over the white expanse of the yard. He stood there for a moment, unmoving. Jack rose to go, but Leo heard the squeak of the swing and turned around.

"Come here," he directed. Jack stepped over, his footsteps crunching on the snow. He leaned against the railing, unconsciously imitating Leo's stance.

"I thought that he was crazy when he wanted to go back to teaching," Leo began. "The Secret Service just about threw a fit; it was a nightmare, security-wise. Abbey wouldn't talk to him for a week. She knew that with his MS he might not have a lot of time left."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"None of us knew what he was looking for."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"So, finally someone asked him," Sarah said, a watery smile creasing her face. "He told us, 'I'm looking for the eraser. I just realized that I've been giving you the wrong lecture.' The thing was, we had all been sitting there for half an hour and hadn't realized it."

"You remember the time that he 'came to a sudden arboreal stop'?" Sam asked. "CJ had a hell of a time trying to spin that one to the press. How many other people can say that they tried to spin the President of the United States running into a tree with his bicycle?"

"It wasn't his bike," Toby pointed out. "It was Leo's and even though I'm sure that Leo had only ridden it like once before, Leo was pretty mad at him."

"So, then Leo calls him a klutz, in the Oval Office, in front of Mrs. Landingham," Charlie reminisced.

"That's bad on so many levels," Sam reflected.

"How do you know that? You weren't even working there yet?" CJ asked Charlie.

"It came up," Charlie answered. "I heard a lot of things. I just sort of tended to blend into the background. It was my job not to stick out."

"And just think, this kid could have had a bike helmet on his head," Toby pointed out.

"With all due respect," Charlie retorted, "I hear that they're really nice bike helmets."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I'll have to take your word on that one."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Now don't you argue with me, Josiah Bartlet," Abbey said firmly, pulling the quilt up over him.

"Why would I do something like that?" he answered flippantly. He sounded so much like his old self that it almost hurt to look at him and see what he had become, a mere shell of himself.

"Don't play cute with me," she answered, trying to keep the crack from her voice as she concentrated on smoothing down the blanket.

"Abbey," he said, his voice suddenly serious and weighted.

"Don't do this, Jed," she replied brokenly.

"Abbey, I don't know how much…"

"Jed," she cut him off. A silence hung between them for a moment and he reached up to take her hand; the simple gesture cost him so much.

"I want to see them all one more time." She didn't have the strength to argue with him, to tell him that he would have time in the morning, to tell him that he was too tired and had to rest.


	9. My Word

_"You're too damn hard to get in touch with," Toby grumbled. "I had to get through three different sets of agents and publicists and this is just your first book."_

_Mark laughed, "I don't even think I have three people working for me right now, Toby. What's new?"_

_"You ask me what's new?" he exclaimed. "You crack the best seller list and you ask me what's new?"_

_"I thought that the best seller list is just a pop culture gauge, not a device for literary criticism," Mark retorted happily._

_"You can't pin that one on me. I just goaded Alex into saying it."_

* * *

They sat in the study, sometimes talking quietly, other times lost deep within their own thoughts. Silence would reign for a few moments after each of the members of the blood family filed into the library. What Jack had called the family by fire was left alone.

"It's so hard to believe," someone said softly, staring out at the snow swirling outside.

A harsh gust of wind rattled the windowpanes. "Do not go gentle into that good night," Sam quoted even more quietly. It was a measure of how still the room was that anyone heard him.

"What are you talking about?" Josh asked, desperately trying to break the ominous hush inside while outside the blizzard raged.

"Dylan Thomas," Toby answered shortly, effectively cutting off the conversation.

"This is the way the world ends," Sarah said tightly after another period of uneasy silence, "not with a bang but a whimper."

"T.S. Eliot," Toby snapped. He paused for a second, staring at them all. "What are we playing at here?" No one attempted an answer as they sank back into their reflections.

The people at the window saw the headlights of the vehicle coming through the snow and those on the other side of the room heard the motor through the whistling of the wind around the chimney. The vehicle, a dark spot against the furious white, came to a stop in front of the house and the rear door opened.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Caught in the wind, the door slammed closed.

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"Thank God you're finally here," Donna exclaimed, rushing in to give her a hug. "There have been blizzard warnings out for hours and they've been advising essential travel only."

Alex looked absolutely exhausted. "I know why," she responded. "If the Secret Service SUV hadn't been four-wheel drive, we never would have made it through." She pulled off her wet overcoat, revealing a once crisp russet suit that was more suited to a business meeting. Or to a thesis defence.

"We've been worried about you," CJ said, coming to greet Alex. "Did you even bother to change at all?" she asked in disbelief as she watched the younger woman kick off her shoes.

"Alex, I'm glad you're here," Zoey said, hurrying into the foyer and briefly embracing the haggard girl. "Dad's been asking for you."

The two girls headed towards the library. Abbey was just on her way out; she took one look at Alex and stated, "Annie just went in now. We'll get you freshened up a bit before we send you in." She wrapped an arm around Alex's shoulders and guided her up the stairs. "I don't suppose that you took the time to pack anything."

"The airline lost it with all of the transfers and weather delays."

"Well, then we'll just have to see what we can scrounge up," Abbey said, slipping back into mother role. It was easier than trying to face everything that was going on. It was easier to be strong if she didn't have to think about it.

"How is he?" she asked anxiously, grateful to be back.

Abbey sighed and turned to look at her husband's former student. "He's ready to say goodbye, but I don't know if he's really ready to go. I know that we're not ready to let him," she stated, her voice starting to quaver ever so slightly.

Alex bit her lower lip and nodded. "Are you okay? I mean…"

"I know what you mean," Abbey supplied, leading her into the bedroom that she and Jed had shared. She stopped short, staring at the big bed. "He hasn't slept in this bed for months," she confided softly, "but it's still ours. I'm not ready to wake up alone." Her eyes filled with tears again, but she blinked them away, starting to root through one of the dresser drawers.

"If there's anything that I can do," Alex began quietly.

"You can tell me what everyone wants to know," she answered firmly, determined to force her mind away from herself for at least this one moment.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Are we calling you Doctor Cunningham yet?"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She nodded, unable to conceal her elation despite the solemn situation and the sadness on her face. "I'm pretty sure the evaluators had never seen anything like it before," she said, reaching out to trail her fingers over one of Jed's frail hands, craving the contact. "One of my friends was on a cell phone with the airline, pleading for a flight. I didn't even really hear whether nor not I had passed; my tutor gave me a lift to the airport and she had to tell me again."

He chuckled, squeezing her hand. "I didn't mean to alarm you," he said, a tired smile playing across his face. It had been a day of far more activity than he was used to and the exertion suddenly caught up to him; he was exhausted.

"I just got a message passed to me," she explained, "telling me that you had asked for us all to come. Donna said that she thought I should get home as quickly as possible, but there wasn't much information and I couldn't get through to anyone until I was half-way across." She laughed half-heartedly, "Would you believe that these people actually turned their cell phones off?"

"I'm glad that you made it, Alli, more glad than you'll know," he said, using the endearment that she allowed very few people to use in that manner. "Would you ask Abbey to come in? There's something that I need to tell her."

"Of course," Alex answered as she rose. He kept his weak hold on her hand as she bent to kiss his forehead. "Is there anything else?" she whispered quietly.

"Remember what we did in the time when our eyes looked toward the heavens, and, with outstretched fingers, we touched the face of God," Jed breathed, so softly that she could barely make out his words.

"I won't forget," she answered gently, reaching out to brush a lock of hair tenderly away from his face.

She had to bend even closer to hear what he said next. "Remember that when you get to the Oval Office."

She hesitated for a long moment before she responded. "I give you my word."


	10. Partings

**Sunward We've Climbed**

**While it is true that many of the people Bartlet drew toward himself have enjoyed what could be called spectacular successes in the political arena, it must be remembered that not all achievements are political. In fact, none of the things that truly matter in life are dependent on politics.**

**Jack McCosham, a fellow Bartlet student and the chief of staff for the Senate Minority Whip, once said that the original members of the Legacy were more than family by choice; they were family by fire. At first it seemed like just another trite expression, but the more thought that the idea was given, the more it came to be accepted as a truth.**

**When people are thrust together for eight years, toiling for a single united cause, seeing more of each other than those who are family by blood, being raked over the coals for the failures of another, and celebrating the other's victories, they cannot help but form close bonds. The bonds that formed between the original Legacy members were far stronger than blood.**

**Those of us who came after were inducted into this family by fire later, after the patriarch was no longer there to hold the family together.**

* * *

The procession sombrely threaded its way through the streets; the flag-draped casket borne aloft by the honour guard was at the head with the black-clad mourners following behind in tight ranks. The route was lined with the solemn faces of those who had made the pilgrimage to pay their final respects in person to their former president. Dark-suited Secret Service agents lined the route, but there was not so much as a word from the crowd they were there to subdue.

As they left city hall, where his body had lain in state for the past week, and down the street toward where the spire of the church rose to touch the sky, they passed the silent groups with their sober faces. The walk through the streets was one of the concessions that had been made to the public in this a time when everyone was craving privacy.

Abbey followed immediately behind the casket, her head held resolutely high. Flanked on one side by President Nicholson and on the other by the ever-faithful Leo, she made no attempt to wipe away the tears that ran freely down her cheeks. There was something intensely private in her public display of grief. Her hand clutched her rosary so tightly that the beads made indentations in the soft flesh of her palm.

Behind her came her daughters and their families. Liz, Ellie, and Zoey, all leaning on their husbands as their pillars of support, kept their children close. Annie's fiancé walked steadfastly beside her, his eyes cast uncomfortably down at the ground. Unlike the others, he was unaccustomed to the pageantry that the others had long ago become used to. Charlie was caught between his own need to grieve for the man who had become like a father and his need to comfort the woman who was his biological daughter.

Behind them followed those who had come to be family. Josh and Donna each tightly held the hand of one of their children, located and brought home early from their trip. The foreign weight of a black yarmulke rested atop Josh's head; it was the way that he had been raised to mourn.

The relief that had crossed Toby's face when he saw yarmulkes on Josh and Mark had long since faded, replaced by the tight-lipped expression that was Toby's expression of repressed grief. The snow soaked through his flimsy cloth shoes, but he continued on, marking his respect. At his side, CJ matched his every stride with one of her own. Her face, even after her years of practice in front of the press, couldn't quite manage to hide the depth of her feelings.

Margaret walked with Sam. Leo had offered her the option to walk at his side, but she hadn't felt it was her place. Instead, Sam had offered her an arm. In an effort to push off having to deal with things himself, he was coping in his way; he was helping others. But the lines etched into his face and the too-bright sparkle of his eyes gave away all the feelings that he was trying to push down.

Behind them came the lines of students that had been his final project. They had come from the four corners of the globe when they heard of his death. At their head walked the four who had been exceptional among the extraordinary: Mark, like Toby and Josh, sporting the black cap of his faith; Sarah, not content to let the tears freely flow from her eyes, clutching a sodden handkerchief; Jack continually dipping a hand into the pocket of his jacket to trail his fingers over a rarely used rosary; and Alex, like Abbey, carrying her rosary openly, eyes turned toward the heavens.

Behind them swelled the ranks of others who could not be persuaded to stay away. Democrats walked alongside Republicans, senators beside professors, ambassadors behind congressmen.

The snow that had fallen that night, while they had sat vigil, was still laying thickly over everything, but the streets had been laid bare. Josiah Bartlet, the town's most illustrious son, was going home to rest for eternity in the same cemetery as his great-grandfather's great-grandfather and nothing would impede that final journey, just as nothing would stop the people who had come to line the route despite the chill.

Speakers had been set up in open areas so that the service could be broadcast to all, although the ceremony was to be private. Most of the various statesmen and politicians were sheltered in the parish hall; not even they were allowed in the church. People huddled in the areas nearest the speakers, shivering in the cold that came along with a New Hampshire winter morning, waiting to hear the finals farewells to the private man that had become a public servant.

There was no telling what things would catch the grief-dulled eyes of the mourners: the fluttering flag clutched tightly in the hand of a young boy; the group of Notre Dame students proudly showing their colours; the black-clad men standing almost rigidly at attention. Each person would have a different impression of the march past, just as each had different memories of the man it was commemorating.

It didn't take long to reach the old stone church; the priest was waiting on the steps to begin his last service to the former president. With ceremonial precision, the honour guard removed the flag from the casket. With white-gloved hands, they folded it and presented it to Abby as Leo spread the white pall over the smooth wood that housed the body of his best friend. The select few then filed silently into the church and the heavy wooden doors swung closed behind them.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Outside, the speakers crackled.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There was a long moment before anyone moved. The priest had stepped away from the microphone, but no one from the pews had yet stepped forward to speak. Only a few knew who it was to be, who the man himself had selected to complete this final duty. None of them looked in her direction until the soft creak of a wooden pew announced that she was ready.

Her footsteps echoed off the high, vaulted ceiling of the church as she made her way up to the front, genuflecting to the altar. She had been chosen to represent them all. She had been singled out to be the one voice that would speak for many.

"Over the past week," she began, unable to stop the tremor in her voice, "the story of Josiah Bartlet's life has been told and retold many times over. His achievements have been acclaimed and his failures have been analyzed."

She paused for a second, looking down to finger the pages that lay before her on the pulpit. Then she folded them suddenly with one small motion and the barely audible rustle of paper. Sam heard the sound and his eyes snapped upward to rest on her face. "A good man once said that a hero is willing to die for his country, but that he would much rather live for it," Alex said.

Margaret reached out to take her husband's hand as they listened to Alex continue. "Jed Bartlet would have been appalled if he knew his words were someday going to be used to describe himself. He never considered himself anything but an ordinary man thrust into extraordinary situations. He understood that the most is expected of those who have the most."

Toby lifted his eyes from their examination of the fringes of the prayer shawl that peaked out from beneath his suit jacket as she went on, "It can be said that in the end, he refused to let his better angels be shouted down by what some called his obsessive desire to win. He let his voice speak for the voiceless. And that is something to be respected, even if you didn't agree with the message."

Sarah ran her fingers nervously over the hem of her skirt, worrying it through them almost as though it were the rosary that her Protestant fingers had never held. "This is a time for celebrating life; the life that we still have and the life that Jed Bartlet lived," Alex carried on, her voice growing stronger.

"In many ways it was a remarkable life: he loved his wife with all of his heart; he was a loving father to three children, the grandfather of many more." Abbey reached up a shaking hand to wipe her face as she listened, her children around her. "He was the best of friends and an extraordinary teacher. And it just so happened that he was once the president."

Josh reached out to squeeze Donna's hand, seeking to comfort himself as much as he was seeking to comfort her. At the microphone, Alex paused for a second, and then began again. "My grandfather used to quote George Eliot and say, 'All partings carry an image of death.' He used to remind me that our parting words always deserve careful consideration because we can never tell when the parting will be final. The last words that Jed Bartlet left with me are ones that I heard many times before, when I turned to him for guidance: 'Remember what we did in the time when our eyes looked to the heavens and, with outstretched fingers, we touched the face of God.'"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"More than anything else, this encapsulates what we should remember of him. He taught us we must never allow ourselves to become cavalier in our evaluation of this world, with all of its injustices. We cannot hold our obligations fulfilled until we have fought the good fight to its finish, to victory. And then we must never cease to ask, 'What's next?'"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"When did you write that?" Toby asked, repeating her words back to her.

"On the walk over," she answered. "I'm sorry that what you and Sam wrote didn't get to be heard. It was really beautiful."

"You know," Toby said, his eyes wandering over the group gathered at the gravesite, "he used to do that all the time. We'd spend hours writing a thing and then he'd get up and not use a word of it."

"It used to drive me crazy," Sam admitted, coming up to stand beside them. "I'd spend days finding just the right word and then…"

"Most of the time it was just inane drabble," Toby interrupted. "But every once in a while, the words that would come out of his mouth would have more force and more meaning than anything our hours of work could have turned out. You know why?"

She shook her head. Sam answered for her. "Because those were the times that he was speaking from his heart, not from his head."


	11. Spit

_"Sarah, can I have a minute?"_

_She stopped, turning to backtrack towards her editor's office. "I'm going to be late for the three o'clock briefing if I don't leave now. You want me to come and see you after I get back?" The editor was new, had just taken over the week before._

_"I'm sending Jeff," he told her, beckoning her into his office. "I think we've got to talk."_

_Sarah sighed and stuck her pen behind her ear. "Of course, sir. What can I do for you?" _

_He closed the door behind her and motioned for her to take a seat. "I know you've got connections, good ones. I need to know how good those connections really are."_

_"What do you mean, sir?"_

_"People talk. They've been talking a lot, Sarah, with the coverage you gave the thing and especially now that that Goldstein book's come out. I don't know if Danny didn't know about them or didn't care about them, but I need to know."_

_"Danny knew," she told him. "And if you know about Mark's book, then you've obviously heard about the Bartlet Legacy."_

* * *

"What's next?" Josh asked softly, turning his gaze from person to person to survey all of those who had gathered around the big table in Manchester for what was probably the final time.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, what's next? Where do we go from here?" Josh clarified, sitting back in his chair and letting his eyes wander back to the bottle of beer that sat in front of him.

"I still don't understand what you mean," Sam said. "We go home. Where else do we have to go?"

"I don't think he meant it literally," Margaret supplied softly, shredding a napkin into a neat pile. "I think he meant: where are we going from here?"

"You are not going to take this and twist it to some political advantage," Toby accused severely, standing in his indignation. "Not even you could be so callous, so unfeeling, so hard-nosed."

"You just said three things that mean the same thing," CJ pointed out quietly.

Josh had jumped to his feet as well. "I wasn't trying to make this a political discussion at all. I was trying to make what had originally appeared to be a fairly neutral, innocent, safe conversation."

"You did it too," Sarah broke in softly. "You said three things that all mean the same thing."

"Everyone, let's take a deep breath, calm down, and relax a little," Donna suggested. "It's been a tough day for everyone."

"You know what," Josh said, sticking his hands in his pockets and looking abashed. "I'm pretty sure all of those things are the same too." He looked over at Toby briefly, as if to check whether they were going to let the whole misunderstanding drop quietly.

Toby sank back down into his chair. "I think that they were three instructions with the same goal in mind; that doesn't necessarily mean that they all denote the same thing."

Josh sat back down, a look of relief passing over his face. They had buried a president today, a president who had been more than a close friend. They didn't need to break up friendships today too. Donna reached out to place her hand over her husband's reassuringly; across the table, CJ did the same with Toby.

"So, um, what do we talk about now?" Jack asked awkwardly, trying to break the uneasy silence. None of them wanted to talk about the one thing that was really on their minds. They didn't want to talk about the man they had just said their final farewells to.

"How about the fourteen standard punctuation marks in the English language?" Alex suggested softly. "Can anyone name them?"

"You really should be playing poker when you ask those sorts of questions," Sam pointed out.

"Or holding your staff hostage in the Oval Office at two in the morning," Josh added. "Although national parks seem to be a better topic for that. There are now fifty-two of them, you know."

At the passing mention of the Oval Office, Alex's eyes dropped to the table. It was a motion that didn't escape the notice of the sharp gazes of several of the gathered company. "Alex doesn't like to talk about the Oval Office," Mark noted innocently. "She avoids the mention of that one place almost religiously, which is rather difficult, considering."

"Considering what?" Leo asked after a moment, an odd look on his face.

"Considering that we were friends and students of a former president," Mark answered. "Why else?" He shrugged, confused as to why Leo would even further pursue the subject.

"I don't know if it's my place to say," he answered as Alex flashed him a smile of the utmost gratitude.

"Well, honestly, why else would anyone mention the Oval Office?" Mark continued, oblivious to the looks that were being exchanged around the table. "I mean, it's not like it comes up in conversation every day. But I don't get the aversion. It's not like a tenured position or anything where she might think she's jinxing herself."

"Go outside, turn around three times, and spit," Sam said instantly. He got more than a few quizzical stares, even from those who had been there. "I said, go outside, turn around three times, and spit."

Josh clued in and laughed. "I think it's still a little premature for that one, buddy. Save it for another fifteen or so years. Well, a little less if you count everything."

"Well, if you're counting everything, there's got to be some lead-in, one sort of office or another. You can't start from nothing," Toby added. "Do it, do it all," he told Mark.

"You want me to do what?" Mark asked, dropping his jaw and looking at them as if they had all completely lost their minds.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Go outside, turn around three times, and spit."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Charlie said the words softly, walking from the kitchen as he watched Mark fumble with the laces on his shoes.

"How'd you know about that?" Mark asked, kicking off his shoes. "What's it for?"

"It's a type of counter-curse, or something," Charlie explained. "I don't know who came up with it or who started it, or whatever those things need to get going, but it was Bartlet for America, I think, and re-election for sure. Any time someone said something that anyone considered bad luck, they'd have to…" He waved his hands vaguely in circles in the direction of the door.

"Go outside, turn around three times, and spit?" Mark asked.

Charlie nodded. "What'd you say?"

Mark shrugged, completely at sea. "I don't even know. We were talking about Alex's freakish aversion to any mention of the Oval Office."

"Go outside," Charlie started.

"You're not going to do this again," Mark groaned. "It's cold outside. I'm not doing it."

"You wanna jinx it?" Charlie asked, motioning Mark outside. "Do it all."

"I don't even know what I'm jinxing!" he exclaimed.

"Make that the two of us," Jack said, trekking down the hall towards them. "But whatever I said, I've got to do that warped little ritual too."

"You'd both better get out there," Charlie warned. "I'm not sure if there's a time limit on these things."

"For Pete's sake," Jack moaned, slipping his feet into his shoes.

"Can you at least tell us what we're unknowingly jinxing so that we don't do it again?" Mark asked, bending over to retrieve one of his shoes.

"I really don't think that it's my place to say," Charlie responded. "I'm going to go back now. Make sure that you both do it all."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"We don't even know what we're jinxing!"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"And it's really cold out there," Jack complained, sinking back into his chair. "We don't want to have to go out there again. If you would just tell us what we're doing, we promise we won't do it again."

"It's really not our place to say," most of the people in the room chorused as one.

"You rehearsed that, didn't you?" Mark accused. "This is just all some sort of twisted little game for you, isn't it?"

"Well, we're not playing anymore. I don't care if you tell me to go outside, turn around twenty-seven times, and dance a hornpipe, I'm not doing it," Jack declared firmly, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "Especially if no one's going to tell us why we're freezing our butts off and making ourselves look like idiots."

"Then you'd better not open your mouths for a while, boys," Leo told them. He gestured to Sam, Josh, and Toby. "Those guys are pretty sticky about that kind of thing."

"And it's not anyone's place to tell us why," Mark whined, dropping into his seat

"I bet that guessing only gets us more orders to do that stupid rite," Jack groused to Mark, effectively ignoring everyone else in the room.

"Probably," Mark pouted. But, of course, he never would have admitted that he was pouting. Real men didn't pout.


	12. The Fight

**I Have Not Dreamed**

**It would be untrue to say that the members of the Legacy didn't have their own ambitions before they encountered Jed Bartlet. And it would be even more untrue to say that their ambitions emerged unchanged from their connection to this one man. Those two ideas appear to stand in opposition but the reality is that they are in the most perfect harmony.**

**It wasn't necessarily the connection only to Jed Bartlet that made these often sweeping changes in someone's dreams; it was the combination of the interaction with so many other extraordinary people and his expectations. The standards to which he held those closest to him were nothing short of the stars. And yet, somehow he managed to never be fully disappointed if those expectations were not met so long as your best effort was made, so long as you were willing to hit the walls running at full speed.**

* * *

"What's bothering you, Alex?" Leo asked, turning the corner to see her standing in the library, running her fingers over the spines of the leather-bound volumes that filled the room. The hospital bed had been cleared out, and, except for a few small things, the room had been returned to how it had been.

"I couldn't sleep," she answered quietly, locking eyes with Leo. "There are too many things going on inside my head."

Leo sank down into one of the leather armchairs, staring for a moment at the other one, the one that Jed had always preferred although the two were identical. "I don't suppose any of them would have to do with another conversation that the two of us had one night in this room, would it?" He motioned for her to take the empty chair.

She hesitated, removing a volume from the shelf before crossing the room to lower herself down to the soft leather. She glanced down at the book she had chosen. "Browning," she said simply. Leo waited for her to explain further.

She flipped to a page, ran her finger down it for a moment, and then read, "Jove strikes the Titans down not when they set about their mountain-piling, but when another rock would crown the work."

"Aw, hell," Leo said, "Toby's better at this sort of thing than I am."

"Speak of the devil," Alex laughed, gesturing to the hall with the book. Toby stood in the hall, still in his suit pants and now-wrinkled white shirt. "Come on in," she invited, offering him her chair and settling down on the rug before the empty hearth.

Toby looked more than a little confused, but he accepted the invitation. "I thought I heard Paracelsus," he mused, rubbing at his beard.

"Not Paracelsus," Leo said knowledgeably, but with no clue what he was talking about, "Browning."

"The fourth section," Alex told Toby, bypassing Leo. "The Titans and the rocks." Toby nodded.

"Okay, enough of Browning. Are you going to answer my question?" Leo interrupted.

Alex sighed. "It has to do with half a dozen conversations, most of which have taken place in this room, and one of which is the one that you're referring to."

"You want me to leave or something?" Toby asked irritably. "'cause you could have picked someone else to be a better decoration."

"She doesn't want to be President," Leo stated flatly.

"I never said that," she protested softly.

"You didn't not say it."

She sighed again. "I haven't said either."

"You know, he was wrong sometimes," Toby said. "He said that Sam would run."

"He was wrong a lot," Leo added. "But that didn't mean that he stopped trying."

"Why didn't Sam run?" she asked thoughtfully, looking from one man to the other. "I always wondered. I thought that he'd make a good president."

"He never ran because his state was in a lot more trouble than his country," Leo explained. "He did federal politics. He could have done it all. He got elected as a Democrat in the California forty-seventh twice. He won Orange County. He considered doing the whole thing, but California's economy was in a major recession and he didn't see any serious candidates stepping up to the plate. So he did it."

"He gave up his dreams of running the nation to try and pull one state out of the hole that it had dug itself into," Toby continued. "He ran a damn good campaign and he got elected because he was the best. Now he's just got to prove it. Jed was wrong, but you've got to look at the whole board."

"He can be wrong again," Leo told her. "He wouldn't care so long as you felt you were doing something worthwhile with your life. And if that happens to be teaching at some university, then so be it. I know that you've been offered an associate position at Bryant."

"And another one at Notre Dame," Toby mentioned when she didn't seem inclined to. Leo raised his eyebrows at them. "Abbey accidentally let that one slip last week."

Alex cast her eyes downward, intent on studying the pattern of the rug. "I didn't take them," she whispered.

"I'm sorry?" Leo probed.

"I turned them down," she repeated, louder this time.

"Why the hell would you do something like that?" Leo burst out.

"Because I got a position with the UN Department of Political Affairs, working with the Security Council Division."

"Okay," Toby said. It looked like he wanted to say more but he didn't.

"I've gotta ask," Leo commented. "Why are you still awake then?"

"Because I don't know where to go from there."

"You could easily make that your whole career," Leo answered, a little perplexed. "Or get a job at State. And it's still not too late to get a university position."

"That's not what she meant," Toby responded, looking at them both seriously. "She meant the House or the Senate."

"I actually didn't mean either," she corrected, looking down at the rug again. "I meant, do I take having to make Leo's choices or Toby's?"

"My wife's going to be wondering where I am," Leo said softly. "And just know that Jed was never disappointed with Sam for not running." He pushed himself to a standing position, looking down at the young woman sitting on the rug with a strange expression on his face. "Whatever decision you make, we'll all be behind you."

He walked slowly out into the hall, his shoulders stooped. Alex stared out after him in silence. For a few minutes after he had vanished from sight, the two left in the library sat in the stillness of the sleeping house.

"I've got more Browning for you," Toby told her, interrupting the silence. "When the fight begins within himself, a man's worth something."


	13. Leo

_"You both would have loved reading this," Margaret said sadly, reaching out a finger to trace the name carved deeply into the headstone. "Mark, he did well with it. And what's more than that, I think that he did good. He reminded people the way that things should be. And hopefully he helped them trust politicians again."_

_Her fingers played over the sun-warmed stone. "Leo McGarry," she chided softly, "why couldn't you have waited another five years? You would have appreciated the irony. But this is the book that you were waiting for, despite the timing. I know you thought that Toby would do it, but he was too close. We all were."_

* * *

"There's a call for you on line three, Mr. McCosham," the aide said, knocking politely on his door. She wasn't his usual one; his usual was out sick with the flu. This was some loaner from one of the Delaware Congressmen that wasn't quite used to how a bigger office was run.

Jack sighed and lowered the memo he had been reading. Patiently he asked her, "Can you take a message and tell them I'll get back to them?" She tucked her hair nervously behind her ears, nodding. Jack was going to let her hurry out, but then he had a thought. "Did they say who was calling?"

"She said her name was Alexandra Cunningham."

"I'll take the call now," Jack told her, putting down his briefing memos and hitting the flashing button eagerly. "You've got Jack McCosham."

"Hey," she said quietly over the crackling of the static; the connection was bad so he knew she was calling from her cell phone.

"Hey yourself," he answered, leaning back in his chair. "What's up?"

"Not all that much. I just… I just wanted to call and…" She stopped. "I just wanted to call."

"Okay," he responded simply, by now used to her eccentricities. "It's an awfully expensive call for just wanting to call. Your long distance plan sucks." If she was calling from her cell phone he knew that she must be out on the campaign trail again.

"I know."

"Real talkative today, aren't we?"

He heard her sigh over the line and wished that he could fix whatever it was that was going wrong. "You must be busy; I'm sorry for disturbing you," she told him.

It was a familiar avoidance tactic and he knew exactly what she was trying to do, even if he wasn't always sure quite why. "Alex, it's noon. I'm eating my lunch." So what if the last part wasn't exactly true. "Calm down and tell me what's up." He took his last promise to Jed very seriously; he looked out for Alex now.

"It's not what's up that worries me, Jack."

"Then tell me what's down." But he had a pretty good guess what was down; it was probably the polling numbers that they all followed religiously and tried not to let get to them. "Or rather, tell me how far down they've gone," he added after a moment when she still hadn't answered.

"My numbers are good; I tend to think they're a little soft, but at sixty-one I've got room for them to be a little soft."

He whistled softly, knowing full well that she hated it when he did that over the phone. "Sixty-one," he said, dragging out the words. "Considering Rhode Island doesn't have the greatest record for electing women, especially to the House, that's damn good."

He half-expected some wisecrack, but instead she asked, "Did you get a phone call today?"

It was an odd question and it was even stranger that she didn't bother to chastise him for the whistle. "I'm the deputy chief of staff for the House Minority Leader and we're trying to make it Majority Leader," he answered lightly. "My phone has been dead silent all day."

"Margaret called." There was something about the way she said that simple statement that instantly stopped the flow of his words.

"Oh, God," Jack breathed, "Leo." And suddenly he understood why she had called him.

"Don't panic," she told him. "She just said that he was down with a bad chest cold."

Jack breathed a sigh of relief. "Don't scare me like that Alli." He had taken to calling her that in the past few months and Alex found that she didn't mind at all. Usually she hated the childish nickname.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"It's the same chest cold that he's had since Christmas."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You mean it's the same one he had when he gave Joan his coat at Sam's thing at the Governor's mansion so she wouldn't get her dress wet? He swore up and down that it was nothing."

"That's what he told me too," Margaret answered. Donna could almost hear her rolling her eyes. "But the cough lingered and he kept making excuses for it: just clearing his throat or swallowing the wrong way. He had a regular check-up yesterday and his doctor wants to run more tests. He didn't want to say anything until he had more information."

"Did you talk to Abbey?" She was their usual first source of information when their doctors didn't tell them as much as they wanted to know.

"She didn't say much of anything. She mumbled something about walking pneumonia and old men who didn't know when to listen to their bodies. She said that she'd be up some time tomorrow."

"She's flying into LaGuardia?" Donna was reminded of the hurried flight back to the White House that Abbey had made when Jed collapsed before the State of the Union.

"Yeah, she was planning to come up some time next week for a few days, but thought that she'd come up now and bully Leo into listening to his doctors," Margaret explained calmly. "I'm almost glad. It took me almost ten years to get him to finally start eating healthy. And I know that's only when I'm around."

Donna laughed. "I still haven't managed to break Josh. I know that he keeps cookies hidden on the top shelf of his closet. I'm biding my time until I confiscate them and replace them with something else."

It was Margaret's turn to laugh. "Try rice cakes," she suggested.

"You're good, Margaret."

"I try," she answered. "It was nice to talk to you, but I've got to run. I'll keep you posted on what the doctor says."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Thanks."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"'Thanks' is all that I get?" Mark teased. "I call you up special and drop a story on your lap despite the fact that you and your editor have serious Democratic tendencies that you can't manage to hide even though you Democrats don't really control anything at the moment, and 'thanks' is all I get?"

"You know as well as I do that you wouldn't want a conservative paper writing this sort of thing when it's an outreach to the conservative wing of the Democratic party and the liberal wing of the Republicans," Sarah retorted.

"Well, that's beside the point," Mark said, a little deflated. "There are other liberal-leaning papers. And most of them are more outspokenly liberal than the Post. I still called you up to deliver it to your lap."

"Those papers are hardly on good terms with the current White House and they'd go too far and alienate the people you're trying to court while giving ammunition to the people you're trying to oppose. And at the same time cutting the legs out from under you with the people who do support you," Sarah pointed out.

"You've been listening to Jack and Alex," Mark accused. "And you've done a good job of it by the way things sound. When you first started covering the White House you wouldn't have picked up half of that stuff."

"Probably not," Sarah admitted. "But I'm a reporter, not a keen political mind. Plus, Jack prepped me before you called. He saw the agenda it seems like every Republican candidate up for re-election is running on and put two and two together."

"At least this time he didn't get five," Mark snorted. "This is a step up from the last time with the education bill."

"Now, Mark," Sarah said patiently, "we were just a bunch of friends talking that night. You know that I'm off the record with you guys whenever I'm either not at work or haven't specifically stated it. Jack doesn't take whatever you say and start planning strategy. And you don't go and get on the phone with leading members of Congress to swing key votes."

Mark sighed. "I know. You do realize that you're in the best of both positions right now. You've got friends on both sides of the aisle in positions that are none too shabby."

"Oh, but to not have a code of ethics that prevents me from shamelessly exploiting the situation for all that it's worth," she sighed with mock resignation. "What I wouldn't give to be a wanton aspirant."

"You know, you're really bad at that," Mark laughed. "Don't try Hollywood, ever."

"There go my dreams," she sighed melodramatically. "I'll just go find some closet to pine away and die in."

"Try to find some place more regal than a closet if you're going to do that." Mark paused for a second, then asked, "We're still on for this weekend's Celtics' game, right?"

"Yeah. Although why you want to drive all the way to Boston just for a basketball game is beyond me," Sarah sighed, for real this time.

"Because they're playing the Bulls. You've got the two best teams in the NBA playing one another within travelling distance, and I've got courtside tickets. Why wouldn't I go?"

"Sometimes I think that I've almost got it and then…"

"Well, if you don't want to go, Leo said that he'd come with me." Mark played his trump card easily. He knew that come Friday afternoon, Sarah would be sitting in the front seat of his car and they'd be on the road to Boston.

"Yeah, but then you'd have to follow Margaret's advice and lay off the nachos and cheese," Sarah countered. She knew that Saturday evening she'd be sitting in a courtside seat watching the Celtics and the Bulls battle it out.

"What time are they expecting us for supper on Friday?"

"I said that we'd find a place to eat on the way. Leo's got some blood tests and stuff at the hospital in the afternoon and this way Margaret doesn't have to worry about preparing a huge meal, like you know that she would."

"Sounds good. What time are you done?"

"As soon as the Press Secretary puts the lid on after the three o'clock briefing."


	14. An Encounter

**The Sunlit Silence**

**After leaving the Oval Office, most former presidents seem to stay in the spotlight for a few years while they make nation-wide, and sometimes worldwide, speaking tours. Then they seem to fade into the woodwork, write a few volumes of memoirs, and only come out to special events.**

**Jed Bartlet did some of those predictable things. He gave lectures to most of the major universities in the country. He travelled overseas to lecture at his alma mater, the London School of Economics, on the deregulation of the Far East trade barriers. And then he retired back to his Manchester for six months before taking up a special position at the Dartmouth College.**

**It was there that he continued making contributions to re-shaping the nation. Because of security restrictions, he selected his own students and they were passed through a rigorous screening program. A disproportional number of those students are either faces now familiar to the nation, or the brains behind the recognizable faces.**

* * *

"Congresswoman Cunningham," the secretary announced as Alex burst into his office, cheeks flushed strawberry red with indignation and her blue eyes shooting sparks.

"I can't believe that he would have the audacity to have said that!" she exclaimed, pacing angrily before his desk. "I've never even met the man before. If it hadn't been for Jed…"

"None of this would ever have happened," Jack finished. "Had it not been for him, none of us would be where we are. I'd be a lawyer in some over-priced office, probably hating every second of what I thought I would love. Sarah would be writing for some little newspaper, dreaming of making it big but never daring to try. Mark would still be looking at some university calendar, trying to figure out what it is he wants to spend the rest of his life doing."

In the moment while she was still speechless with disbelief that he would interrupt her and while she tried to think of a coherent retort, he continued. "If you could manage to calm down enough to tell me what exactly was said by whoever it was that said it for whatever reason they did, I could maybe make some sense of this whole thing."

Alex tossed her hands up in the air in frustration and dropped down into the seat before his desk. She let her head fall forward into her hands and all he could see was the top of her curly hair. She said something in answer, but it was smothered in her arms and he couldn't quite make it out.

Reaching out, he lifted her chin so that he was looking into eyes that were suddenly filled with tears. "I can't hear what you're saying when you're talking to your arms," he joked, trying to bring a smile to her face. When had it become painful for him to see her suffering? "That is, unless you think that they're better conversationalists," he added.

"I said, what about me?"

"You'd be everyone's favourite poli sci prof, Alex. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but this is what you were born for, however much you drag your feet or question us for pushing you. You were meant to do this, to make people think about what they really believe and make them re-evaluate all of the things that they take for granted."

As he looked down into her eyes, he realized the lesson behind his words. It was a lesson that wasn't necessarily meant for her. It was a lesson that made him question what he really thought about this girl he had studied with, this girl he never would have met but for a chance encounter with a past president.

"Now, tell me who it was that made such an inflammatory remark so I can go and beat the crap out of them," Jack continued lightly, still trying to make her laugh.

"You can't do that, Jack," she told him seriously. He was the deputy chief of staff for the House Minority Leader and she was a member of the Minority Leader's caucus. Just because the two of them were friends, she couldn't expect preferential treatment. Besides, he really couldn't go out beating people up for her anyway.

"You're right. It wouldn't look good in the papers. I'll get one of my lackeys to do it." That worked; he could see the beginning of a smile playing around her lips. "Now you've got to tell me who I'm risking one of my lackeys for."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Bruno Giannelli."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Josh repeated the name slowly, grimacing. Jack looked at him with a look of growing concern. Josh hurried to reassure him. "He's not bad, and that's the problem. Unfortunately for everyone, he's good at what he does."

Jack thoughtfully chewed on one of his French fries. It had become a weekly tradition for the two men to eat lunch together on Friday afternoons when they were both in DC. "I'm not sure exactly what he does though. I had one o'clock meeting that showed up early and Alex had to catch a flight back to Providence at two."

"He's the person that you call in when you want to win an election you're all but guaranteed to lose," Josh explained. "But Alex is looking good for the next election; she's incumbent."

Josh shrugged. "I'll ask around. Bruno isn't the most secretive of people. Someone had to have heard something."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You'll check around?"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Of course I'll keep my eyes out open for you, CJ," Sarah answered. "There's actually a guy I know who's a copy editor. He desperately wants to get some hands-on reporting experience, but his parents owned a newspaper in Bloomington or something. So he has copy experience and Bud, the new personnel guy, has relegated him to copy for the rest of his life."

"The Post equivalent of the Steam-Pipe Distribution Venue?" CJ asked. Over time, that had become code for anything that was below the person assigned to it.

"You could say that. He's a bright kid, has a poli sci degree and everything. I'll tell him that you're interested in someone with editorial experience who'll be willing to start at the bottom and work to the top."

"Sounds good to me. This is my baby and I don't want to turn it over to anyone who hasn't gotten their hands dirty and sweated blood for it. I'll interview him, but I trust your evaluation. I've just got one question before you even talk to the guy…"

"He's a Democrat," Sarah answered, cutting her off. "We've had drinks a couple of times. Jack knows him from somewhere."

"That's my girl," CJ said.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I knew I could count on you."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Not a problem, Josh. I'm always glad to help out."

Josh laughed a little. "You've mellowed of the years, Chris. You're not afraid that other people are getting more of the President's golf time?"

Chris Wick groaned. "You still remember that?"

"I'm like an elephant; I never forget," Josh declared confidently.

"Josh, you're going to be late for your four o'clock," his secretary reminded him, hovering nervously outside the door to his office.

Josh lowered the phone to talk to her. "I thought my four o'clock cancelled."

"That was yesterday. You've got Jacobs walking through the door any minute now."

"I'm not the youngest Congressman anymore," Chris was saying, oblivious to Josh's little exchange. "Cunningham and Keegan are the ones who have to be worried about who the President is playing golf with."

"Yeah," Josh responded, distracted. "Except this one happens to be a Republican."

"So, you never did tell me who Giannelli was talking to. Quid pro quo, buddy. Which single Congressman is harbouring Presidential ambitions?" Chris paused for a second, waiting for Josh to answer. When there was nothing, he continued, "It'd have to be a young one for Giannelli to tell them they've got to get married for it to be feasible. The older ones are all either committed bachelors or already married."

"Look, I'd love to talk, Chris," Josh said hurriedly. "But unfortunately I'm running late for a meeting. See you later."


	15. Winning

_"Honestly, Mom," Joan pleaded. "We're eighteen years old and graduating in June. Why is it such a big deal that we want to go on a road trip with our friends?"_

_Josh interrupted his wife, answering for her. "You want to go on a road trip with your friends to a REPUBLICAN policy convention."_

_Joan sighed, turning to Noah for backup. "We're not going to the Republican convention," Noah supplied quietly. "There isn't even a Republican convention. We made that up to tease you 'cause we knew that you'd get mad about it. We're driving up to DC to help Jack out with a Democratic youth forum."_

_"We just got back from DC," Josh protested, sinking down onto the couch with some of the wind taken out of his sails._

_"You maybe just got back from DC," Joan argued, as always more outspoken than her twin. "But we haven't been in ages. And it counts as extra credit for our AP government class if we go…" She added, trying to keep an innocent look on her face._

_"I don't think that the two of you need to worry about that class," Donna pointed out. "You know why?"_

_"'cause our Mom's Senate Minority Leader with our dad as her chief of staff. Uncle Sam is governor of California; Uncle Charlie is governor of New Hampshire," Joan chorused with a sigh._

_"Jack's going to be the chief of staff for the Senate Minority Whip in another month or two; Alex is a Congresswoman; Sarah's the Post's lead White House correspondent," Noah picked up where his sister had left off seamlessly._

_Joan picked up the thread again, "Mark works with the GOP, Uncle Toby writes best-selling political commentaries and Aunt CJ founded the most influential political magazine in the country."_

_"And…" Donna prompted._

_Joan sighed. This really was their mother's favourite story. "And we took our first steps from the knee of President Bartlet. But I don't remember that so I really don't think that it counts."_

* * *

"Leo's not doing so well," Donna told Josh, reaching around him to turn down the burner on the stove. "Margaret said that the doctors are only giving him another week or two."

Josh sighed. "We should go up there."

"You know that he doesn't want us going up there and seeing him flat on his back in a hospital bed," Donna reminded him, adding some pepper to the sauce he was stirring.

"The man was my hero. You know how teachers always used to ask who we wanted to be like when we grew up. I always told them I wanted to be Leo McGarry," Josh told her seriously. "I didn't know about the alcohol and stuff then but I don't know if it would have mattered."

"I know, Josh," Donna answered, moving around behind him to massage the tension out of his shoulders. "But he doesn't want us up there. He doesn't want us seeing him in so much pain."

"Why doesn't he just take the damn drugs?" Josh burst out, turning around so that he could face her and completely ignoring his spaghetti sauce.

"Because he wants to beat it. He fought so hard to kick the addictions that he doesn't want to go back to them, even if they can't do him any more harm. He wants to win," she told him, repeated what he already knew.

"How's Margaret holding up?" Josh asked, his voice husky. He turned around to go back to his cooking. The twins would be home from band practice soon and the four of them were going to eat supper together. It didn't happen often.

Donna sighed. "She doesn't want to let him go, but she knows that it's for the best. It's hard for her to see him like that." The lingering chest cold that wouldn't go away had been discovered to be inoperable cancer. "But Abbey's up there staying with them and that means that Leo can stay at home."

"Yeah." From the way he answered, Donna knew that Josh wasn't really listening anymore.

"We'll go up this weekend," she whispered in his ear. "I know that it'll mean a lot to him."

"The kids?"

"Alex and Jack have offered to keep them."

"For good?" Josh joked, a weak smile tugging at the corners of his eyes.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"What do you think?"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I think that it's a pretty colour, but with your blue eyes, you might want to try something with a little more pink," Alex told Joan, holding up a different dress for her evaluation. Joan looked at it and wrinkled her nose a little.

"Don't you think that pink is too much of a little girl colour for a teenager?" she asked, with all of the confidence in maturity that only a thirteen-year-old can pull off.

"Nope," Alex answered, pushing the dress at her. "Try it on and see if you like it."

Joan sighed as she allowed herself to be shooed into the dressing room. "You know," she called out over the curtain, "you're much more fun to shop with than my mom. Mom's too practical. It's always, 'Well, this dress would be good for so-and-so's fundraiser or such-and-such an inauguration.'"

"Oh, we're not shopping for no reason," Alex called back to her. "Tonight we're going to the new Italian restaurant downtown with Ted Keegan and…"

"Congressman Keegan?" Joan squealed, throwing aside the curtain and stepping out. "He's dreamy, Alex." Joan had a crush on the young Congressman from Maryland. It was a testament to the abnormality of her upbringing that she knew the names of more Congressmen and Senators than movie stars.

Joan crossed the area to stand in front of the mirror. She twirled, letting the filmy skirt spin out around her. "What do you think? You think he'll like it?"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"It's simply to die for."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Is it better than the triple-fudge cake from Borelli's?" Noah asked seriously.

"Is it better than the triple-fudge cake?" Jack asked flippantly. "This cake has seven layers of buttermilk chocolate cake sandwiched between layers of dark chocolate mousse. And it's drizzled with hot fudge and served with a giant bowl of French vanilla ice cream."

Noah's eyebrows went up. "Wow," he breathed. "They should have laws against that." He paused, considering. "Wait, no they shouldn't."

Jack laughed. "Besides, it'd be nasty to get through the House. I'm sure there'd be all sorts of riders and amendments tagged on to it that would sink it."

Noah thought about it, and then nodded gravely. "The language would give you trouble too. They'd stick you on whether it was necessarily dark chocolate or if other forms of it should also be included. Then it would get messy because some people like milk and others go for white."

"Ah," Jack said, digging into the rapidly melting ice cream sundae that sat on the table between them. "The partisanship of chocolate. That one's even worse than the Republicans and the Democrats."

"Yeah, there are more divides in that one," Noah agreed, taking another spoonful of ice cream. "Milk or dark? White or semisweet?"

"Belgian or Dutch? Swiss or German?" Jack continued. Then he switched topics. "Your suit's at my place, right?"

Noah nodded. "Why did I need to bring that?"

"We're going to the new Italian place with Congressman Keegan and Hilary from my office. Alex and Joan are out shopping for new dresses as we speak."

"Is Hilary the blonde one?" Noah asked. Jack nodded. "Good," Noah said. "I wanted to ask her why she left the section on school vouchers out of the last speech you guys gave."

Jack laughed heartily. "You know, somehow I don't think that anyone else has ever quite had the childhood that you and your sister had. I mean, even Ellie and Liz were the daughters of a politician and you still see them with normal lives."

"Aunt Abbey was at least normal," Noah pointed out. "You want the last scoop of strawberry?"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"It's all yours."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Gee thanks, Josh," Donna said, her tone falsely bright. "You're such a gentleman, leaving your wife to take the blame for something that you wanted to do."

She raised her hand hesitantly to knock. She had talked to Margaret and Abbey before they came to warn them that they were coming, but they were both more than a little nervous at what they would find. Leo had been keeping everyone away for the past month, since he had really started to deteriorate.

Josh sighed as he watched her hand hover just over the knocker. Then he reached out and did it himself. They instantly heard footsteps from inside and Margaret opened the door, greeting them with wide smiles. "You're in trouble," she stated happily, showing them inside.

"I thought I told you I didn't want any visitors," Leo growled at them breathily from the couch. His face was pale and he had lost so much weight that he was a mere shadow of himself, but he wore an ear-to-ear grin beneath his oxygen mask.

"It was all her idea," Josh answered, pointing to Donna. "I couldn't keep her away."

"It's good to see you again," Leo told them weakly, gesturing to the open seats. "I'm glad that you didn't decide to start listening to me now."

"Were Mark and Sarah up here yesterday for the Celtics game?" Donna asked, lowering herself to a chair near the muted TV. Leo nodded.

"They don't listen worth a damn either."

"Jack and Alex said that they'd probably drop by on Tuesday. They've got the kids right now and they both had meetings on Monday that they couldn't get away from," Josh informed Leo, perching on the arm of Donna's chair.

"None of you listen. CJ and Toby are 'just passing through' on Monday and Sam was 'in the area' last Thursday," Leo told them. "I might as well have saved my breath."

"Come on, old man," Abbey said, coming in from the kitchen with a glass of water and a couple of white pills, "you know that you're glad to see them." She held them out to Leo.

He reached out to take them, first examining the pills. "Tylenol," Abbey reassured him. "The same as always."


	16. Not Entirely Political

**The Shouting Wind**

**The majority of Jed Bartlet's students are making themselves well known on the state, national, and, in some cases, international levels, but most of those students were headed in that direction before they were taken under Bartlet's wing. Bruce Douglas would likely have become a noted economist without his study under Bartlet, but the association with the Nobel laureate no doubt boosted his reputation and helped him hone his theories.**

**But those students, making up the overwhelming majority of those that Bartlet took on, do not fall under the umbrella of the Legacy. They were and continue to be exceptional minds, but their ambitions, political or otherwise, were already more or less in place before the events that led them to study under the former President. While their academic careers were no doubt significantly affected by the Bartlet's tutelage, their lives were not as profoundly affected as the lives of those who would be inducted into the Legacy.**

**However, a small group of students did not harbour the ambitions that they now find themselves possessing. Or, at least, they never admitted to them before they began to study under Bartlet. And some of those students are perhaps the ones that you never would have guessed. For example, Sarah Sutherland, lead Washington Post White House correspondent, was headed to a job as the editor of a paper that devoted most of its space to the sports teams of the local high school.**

**There are three others. The four of us are the ones who found our lives forever altered by the small events that brought us to the notice of Jed Bartlet.**

* * *

"What was that quote again?" Toby asked, peering over Sam's shoulder at the laptop. "I think that it got lost somewhere in the morass of unpunctuated rambling."

Sam sighed and turned to glare over his shoulder at Toby. "It's right here at the beginning. And there's punctuation. But beside that fact, I don't work for you any more and Mallory asked me to write the speech for her, not you."

"You might not work for me, but I wouldn't want Mallory passing out for lack of oxygen at her dad's memorial service because she can't stop to breathe for six paragraphs at a time," Toby answered. "Although how you can differentiate between paragraphs and not use punctuation is still a little beyond me."

"It's easy," Sam explained patiently. "You just hit enter and then this handy-dandy little tab button and then presto; it's done."

Toby shook his head and paced away, motioning for Sam to get back to work. "What was that quote again?"

Sam sighed again and scrolled to the top of the page. "The life of every man is a diary in which he intends to write one story and writes another."

"Who said that?" Toby asked, circling to read over Sam's shoulder again. "You've got to source it somewhere."

"James Barrie," Sam answered, pulling off his reading glasses to rub at the bridge of his nose. "And it's in there. The next sentence after the quote."

"Sentence?" Toby questioned. "You mean that big thing that stretches on for the next page and a half without so much as a comma?"

**------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

"Do you want to do it yourself?"

**------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

"What kind of a question is that?" Josh responded, surrendering defeat to the crumpled mess he had made of his tie and submitting to Donna's ministrations. "You know that you're the only one who can make these things lie flat."

"Then you have to stop fidgeting for ten seconds so that I can get it done," she told him forcibly, sitting him down on the bed so that she could repair the damage that he had caused. "What are you so keyed up about anyway?"

"Jack asked for some help wording something. I'm hoping that it's 895. I've been itching to get a look at the wording of that bill," Josh answered, nearly bouncing on the bed in his excitement. Sometimes it was hard to believe that he was any older than the twins.

"Calm down, Josh," Donna chided quietly. "There'll be time enough for politics after the service."

"Leo didn't want the world to come to an end while we mourned," Josh reminded her. "895 is a variation of the education package he tried to get through with Sam before he retired the last time," he added more softly. "There's no chance of it going through the Senate right now, but it has a chance in the House."

Donna's hands paused in their careful smoothing of his tie.

**------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

"That's probably what Jack's been so anxious about since Leo died."

**------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

"He's lost two of his heroes and now he's spending his nights drafting legislation that he thinks they would have been proud of?" Mark asked, fussing with the silk handkerchief in his breast pocket. "Something about this doesn't ring right."

Sarah stepped in to fix it for him, sighing. "I really don't know what's up with him, but he's been like that since before we even found out that Leo was sick. I thought it was just the stress of the campaign, but he started acting even weirder after that."

"But you don't deny that he spends half of his time trying to write bills that either Jed or Leo would have tried passing?" Mark asked surprisingly sharply.

"What do you mean by that?" Sarah asked, slipping back into reporter mode. She detected a story, even if she would never write it.

"It's just a question," Mark answered, backing off immediately. But Sarah's suspicions were already raised.

"They all fall within the same central-Democratic viewpoint," she parried. "It's only natural that some of the issues that they advocate coincide."

"Jack never fell centre-of-the-pack. He was always a little right of that. Alex was always a little left and you were right down the middle, when you finally got around to caring about those things," Mark countered. "There's got to be a reason that he's suddenly started advocating different politics."

"I suppose that you've got a theory," Sarah teased, fishing for information as she slipped the handkerchief back into his pocket.

**------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

"If I did, you'd be the first to know."

**------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

"What exactly do you mean by that, John Edward McCosham?" CJ questioned. "It's a simple yes or no answer. Have you found yourself a girlfriend yet?"

"No, ma'am," he sighed.

"You're lying," she accused him. "You only call me 'ma'am' when you're lying to me."

"I haven't exactly found what you'd call a girlfriend," Jack admitted.

CJ lowered her paper to look critically at Jack. "Don't tell me that you're accidentally sleeping with a call girl," she deadpanned, turning to look over her shoulder at Sam.

Sam, having just rounded the corner from the kitchen, looked at CJ in shock. "How did you even know I was here?"

"You are the only person I know who can manage to make dress shoes squeak even when they're not wet, Spanky," she told him, twisting back to look at Jack. "Now could one of you please explain how his statement is even logically possible?"

Jack sighed. "Tonight at Peel, nine-thirty. If you want to find out, don't be late."

**------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

"Peel? What's a boy with a good Scottish name like McCosham doing going to an Irish pub?"

**------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

"It's got the cheapest beer," Jack answered. "And something gives me the distinct impression that I'm going to be buying a lot of it tonight."

"You didn't tell me that you were buying beer," CJ whined, coming up from the bar with a pint in her hand. She pointed to her watch. "Nine-thirty on the dot. Now spill."

"Wait," Jack interrupted, "where's Toby?"

"Toby gets to be late, but you threaten to withhold information if I'm late?" CJ inquired sharply, eyebrows rising.

"Look, I figure that I'm going to need Toby's help. And if the two of us get into some long-winded argument about Daylight Savings Time, then I'm never going to get through this. Besides, Josh won't be here for another five minutes," Jack explained, motioning for CJ to slide into the circular booth next to Sam. "I told him we were meeting at nine."

"Boy," Toby said gruffly coming up behind CJ, "this had better be good because we've got a flight early tomorrow morning."

"What are you all doing here?" Josh asked, sauntering up. "I thought that I'd be early and have time to have a beer before you got here and started harping on me about my so-called sensitive system."

"Early?" Sam repeated in disbelief.

"Yeah, it's quarter-to."

"Sit down, shut up, and get a new watch," CJ directed, defending her beer from Josh's reaching hand. "Now spill, Jack."

"Is it 895?" Josh asked excitedly, forgetting about CJ's beer in his eagerness.

"No, but I might bring that by your office on Monday," Jack answered, gesturing for the waitress to bring him a pitcher. "I wanted some advice on a matter that's not entirely political."

**------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

"Not entirely political?"

**------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

"I can't even believe that you would have started the conversation like that!" CJ scolded, her voice rising.

"That was almost an hour ago, Ceej," Josh reminded her. "And four pitchers of beer ago."

"I still can't believe that he would have started this conversation of all things with that phrase," she maintained irately. "Even you weren't that bad Josh."

"I was in a completely different situation," he answered, sounding far too defensive for CJ's liking.

"You make it sound almost as though you wanted your marriage to be one of political convenience." She turned back to Jack, declaring, "Now I know why you didn't want to invite any of the Sisterhood to this little strategy session of yours."

"Alex is going to think anything is a political marriage proposal after what Bruno said, CJ," Josh responded, forgetting that CJ didn't know about Bruno's latest statement. "You know that."

"Bruno?" she repeated, confused. "Bruno Gianelli?"

Toby nodded his head solemnly, tapping the excess ashes off the end of his cigar. "One and the same."

"What does Bruno have anything to do with this?" she demanded. "And how come I've been kept out of the loop? There was a time when I was your first call."

"Bruno started doing some thinking," Josh started, explaining what he had managed to pry out of Chris Wick.

"I didn't know that he could think," CJ mumbled into her beer.

Josh ignored her and continued. "And he started recognizing some patterns. You don't get very many people switching from the UN to the House of Representatives within two years of getting their doctorates from Oxford in International Affairs."

"So he started asking questions," Jack picked up. "And he started adding things up."

"He was on the Hill consulting with some Georgia representative who barely squeaked by with a win when he happened to see her. Leo was escorting her back from lunch," Josh supplied.

"And he managed to get two and two to make four," CJ declared, all but slamming her glass down on the table. It was lucky that it was empty or Sam would have wound up wearing the contents.

Josh continued as though she hadn't interrupted. "He cornered her in her office and gave her a few choice pointers. I don't know most of them but the one that I did manage to find out was he told her flat out that a snowball had a better chance surviving in hell than she did of getting the Democratic nomination without a trophy husband."

"I'll strangle him with my bare hands," CJ growled, gripping her glass. "I'll do it. You know that I will."

"You see why I didn't ask the women?" Jack said quietly.


	17. Meetings

_"You know," Alex started unceremoniously, "not quite nineteen years ago I would have been sitting in one of these seats, wearing a uniform very much like yours."_

_She paused for a second and the group of grade seven students wasn't quite sure how to react. This was their government class and their teacher had prepared them to sit quietly and listen to the Congresswoman who was going to come and speak. Somehow, Alex wasn't quite what they had expected. "That said, I'm not going to stand here and give some incomprehensible speech about the vital work that we do. Instead, I'm going to talk about whatever you want me to talk about."_

_The teacher started. This wasn't what she had prepared the class for. And of course, it had to be the class clown whose hand instantly shot up into the air, a grin on his face. Expecting the worst, the teacher groaned softly as Alex called on him._

_"Yeah," he stated boldly, "I've got a question." The teacher tried to brace herself but it was difficult because anything could come out of his mouth. "Why do the New Hampshire primaries matter so much?"_

"Why are you so nervous?" Ted Keegan asked, pausing in the doorway of Jack's office. "I can hear you pacing from down the hall. You're worse than you were the night of the New Hampshire primary with Merrell for goodness sake."

"You really don't want to know, Ted," Jack mumbled, still stalking back and forth across his office.

"You're telling me that I don't want to know why everyone's running scared, you almost made one of your interns cry, and you're wearing a groove in your carpet?" Ted questioned. "Are you sure?"

Jack sighed, coming to a stop. "I almost made an intern cry?"

"You almost made Harrington's niece cry," Ted amended. "And it's only ten o'clock."

Jack reached up a hand to rub at the bridge of his nose. "Please tell me that I hired another Harrington while I wasn't paying attention."

"Nope," Ted reassured him. "Susanne Harrington, daughter of Roger Harrington whose brother is…"

"Whose brother is William Harrington, who is, aside from Donna and the Whip, the most influential Democrat currently sitting in the Senate," Jack finished with a groan. "This day keeps going from bad to worse."

"Send her flowers," Ted advised, coming into the office and perching on the edge of Jack's desk. "That seemed to work for Mr. Lyman."

"Josh," Jack corrected unconsciously. "Mr. Lyman makes him feel old."

"I've met the guy three times; he's the Wayne Gretzky of the DC political scene. I think that I should be calling him Mr. Lyman," Ted maintained. "Now why are you so wound up?"

"No reason," Jack answered, resuming his pacing from where he had left off.

"No reason? No reason at all?"

Donna stood with her feet planted and her hands on her hips, watching her husband nearly bouncing off the walls of his office. Somehow she didn't quite believe him when he assured her that there was absolutely no reason for his hyperactivity.

"Nope," Josh grinned happily, looking like he wanted to twirl in his chair.

"Josh," Donna warned. Joan and Noah knew that tone and they knew that it was best to co-operate. Josh knew it too, but he had too much nervous energy to listen.

"Donna," he called back to her, echoing her tone.

"I'm going to stand here until you tell me what's going on. And then you'll miss not only your lunch with Jack, but also your meeting with Harrington that you've been dying to go to all week," she threatened, shifting her position so that she was leaning up against his doorjamb.

"You've got committee meetings today," Josh responded happily, knowing that he had the upper hand.

"Your meetings are first. My morning committee meeting was cancelled because Weston and Chow were due to present position papers and they both have the flu," she countered easily. Josh deflated a little.

"Donna," he said, whining this time.

"You know that doesn't work with me, Joshua."

"I can't tell you. I promised."

"You promised who?"

"I promised Chris Wick that I'd go over the education reform package with him," Alex answered, picking up her pace as she looked at her watch. "I was supposed to be there five minutes ago."

"You've still got Mr. McCosham penciled in at eleven."

"My office or his?" Alex called back over her shoulder to her assistant, not waiting for the answer as she rounded the corner and ran smack into someone.

"Oomph," was all she got to identify the person with. Well, that and a face full of the soft cotton of their very blue shirt.

"I'm sorry," she apologized, stepping away and looking up to see who she had collided with.

"Fancy running into you," Chris greeted her with a smile.

"I'm sorry I'm late," they said together.

"I thought we were…" they started in unison.

"Are you trying to do Abbott and Costello?" Chris asked, laughing, "Because I sure wasn't."

"Neither was I," she assured him. "Now, where are we going?"

"Your office is closer."

"You mind if we go find something to eat? I was planning on grabbing something after we were done, but Jack seems to have penciled himself in," Alex explained.

"I know a little Italian place down the street that keeps a room set aside for people from the Hill," Chris answered. "They make the best rosé sauce you'll ever taste. You need to go back and grab a coat?"

"I'm fine. You?"

Chris shrugged as if to say 'if you can take it, so can I' and started toward the exit. "I bet Jack's going to jump all over you on 467; they're still short five votes. He was in trying to swing me yesterday."

Alex sighed. "He should know by now that I'm not going to vote for it. We need more money spent on health-care, not less."

"I couldn't agree with you more," Chris replied. "He argued that with the rider that got tagged onto 634, the money's going to be there; we just have to pass 467 to cut off funding to labs that haven't produced anything worthwhile in the past three years."

"It took a lot longer than three years for them to cure smallpox," Alex pointed out. "I think we've got to keep the funding where it is AND increase the funding everywhere else." She shrugged. "He's tried this eight times before; if he wants to try again, he can be my guest. But it's not going to work."


	18. The Best Laid Plans

**The Windswept Heights**

**Some people believe that the legacy of President Bartlet is slowly but surely being consigned to the history books, perhaps where it belongs. According to these people, he will soon be just be another president in the long list that children memorize in school. His legacy perhaps is dying out. But his Legacy is still going strong.**

**Those who had first-hand connections with him are aging, growing older with every year, as people naturally tend to do. His best friend died after a bout of cancer not quite two years after him. His wife passed away in her sleep only last year. The others are still alive but the majority are nearing the age where most people begin considering retirement.**

**That doesn't, however, mean that we have seen the last of them. After all, CJ Cregg surrendered her position as editor of Inside Politics two years ago and she still remains one of the most knowledgeable and influential political media analysts in the United States, if not the world.**

**

* * *

**

"I can't believe it, Jack, but somehow you've managed to botch this even worse than Josh did," Donna said kindly.

"Worse than Josh?" CJ's voice questioned over the speakerphone. "I've got to say that I think this is even worse than Toby!"

"Thanks for the support, girls," Jack groaned, his head sinking back down into his arms. "Next time I've ruined my life, I'll make sure that you two are my first calls."

"You mean you're anticipating a next time?" Donna joked, perching herself on the edge of Jack's desk.

"I wasn't anticipating this time," he answered, lifting his head.

"You know what we're going to do?" CJ asked firmly. Even if all she had to go by was the tone of Jack's voice, she could tell that he was upset. "We're going to figure out what went wrong, and then you're going to fix it," she said, answering her own question.

"I'm going to fix it?" Jack repeated, a cautious note of hope starting to creep back into his voice. Donna, however, could see the sceptical expression on his face.

"You're going to fix it," Donna affirmed, backing CJ completely.

"Well," CJ started, "I think that the first of the many things that you did wrong was that you mentioned Bruno. Actually no, the first thing that you did wrong was the make the assumption that she'd say yes without you even trying to woo her. The second thing you did wrong was to mention Bruno."

"Woo her?" Jack repeated incredulously.

"What does Bruno have to do with any of this?" Donna questioned. "And we're not talking about Bruno Gianelli, are we?" Apparently Josh hadn't mentioned that little wrinkle to his wife.

"Unfortunately," CJ told her when Jack didn't appear overly anxious to talk about it. "He sought Alex out about six months ago and told her two things. The first one was that she was crazy to think that the American public was ready to elect a woman to the White House, never mind a Catholic one."

"I don't like the sounds of this if that was just the first thing," Donna commented.

"And the second thing was that if she wanted a hope of even getting through to Super Tuesday, she'd better find someone to marry. His suggestion was someone pretty enough that she wouldn't have trouble with his image and stupid enough that no one would question who was really in charge."

"And you mentioned that?" Donna wondered in disbelief. "No wonder she said no."

**------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

"She didn't exactly say no. She just didn't say yes."

**------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

"And the difference between those is what exactly?" Toby asked pointedly, crossing his arms firmly in front of his chest and attempting to stare Josh down.

"Well, it's like she didn't slam the door in his face; she just closed it softly," Sam offered, wishing that he could be in Washington to either comfort Alex or slap some much needed sense into Jack. Where had the strategy they had come up with in the bar that night gone?

"That analogy makes no sense whatsoever," Toby declared. "What exactly did you say?" he asked Alex, motioning for Josh to hand her another Kleenex.

"You mean before or after he apologized for not being pretty enough or stupid enough to count as a trophy husband?" she sniffed.

Josh groaned as he passed the box of tissues from his desk over to her. "He didn't." He and Toby exchanged glances over the top of Alex's head.

"He did," they chorused together with Sam. It was actually quite a feat considering Sam was in California, carrying on the conversation over the phone.

"How on earth do the three of you know about that?" she inquired sharply, her face turning red again, this time in anger.

Josh at least had the grace to blush. Toby just stared. "Bruno isn't known for being tactful," he stated.

"Or quiet," Sam offered hesitantly.

"Let's go with what you said before he said that," Toby suggested firmly, anxious to move past who knew what and how and get to what had actually happened.

"Why don't we start at the beginning," Sam suggested.

"I don't know if you've got time for that," Alex said miserably.

"You were late coming back from your meeting with Chris," Josh prompted.

"And Jack was waiting in my office," she continued with a sigh. "I thought that he wanted to try and sway my vote on 467 again."

"But instead he proposed?" Toby guessed. Alex tapped her nose.

"He got down on one knee and proposed, right there?" Sam asked, unable to see Alex's gesture.

"Not so much. He skipped the down on one knee thing and sort of skipped the proposed thing too. He started spouting off statistics, told me he had given up trying to get a 'yes' on the bill, and asked me to set a date for the wedding," she clarified, her voice catching on the last words as she lowered her face into her hands.

With her head lowered, they couldn't tell whether she was laughing, or, as was more likely, crying. Toby was the closest and he awkwardly reached out a hand to pat her shoulder, simultaneously looking over at Josh with a 'Why me?' look on his face.

"And I know the rest," Josh answered. "I was waiting for Jack outside and your voices carried through the door. It wasn't good," he explained for the benefit of the others. "Toby did a better job when he proposed to CJ."

**------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

"I have a hard time believing that."

**------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

"Believe it," Jack groaned. "I'll never be able to face her again. She was yelling loud enough that I'm sure everyone in the building could hear her."

"That much I'd believe."

"Josh was outside in the hall and he heard," Donna explained to CJ. "He knew I was in my office eating lunch and called me over right away."

"We can still fix this," CJ maintained. "It'll be more difficult that I had originally anticipated, but we can still fix this."

"You mean like you fixed that statue of Brast or Breast or whatever that Egyptian cat-thing was?" Jack asked harshly.

"Bast," CJ corrected. "And although I'm not quite sure how you heard that story, the glue actually held quite nicely. But I was thinking of something maybe a little more upbeat than an ancient Egyptian cat curse."

Donna chanced a hesitant smile at Jack. After a second, Jack returned it. "We've got a smile here," Donna reported to CJ. "And I've got a spare key to her apartment and the name of the florist that Josh uses when he makes his interns cry."

"Jack," CJ said seriously, "you realize we're taking your word that this isn't a political match because if it is, so help me…"

"I tendered my resignation this morning," he declared quietly.

"I couldn't quite catch that," CJ answered, wishing that she wasn't having this conversation over the phone.

"I gave my notice to Clift this morning before I met with Alex. It's a conflict of interest for me to keep my job if I'm going to be with her, and it'll hurt her in the elections when the story gets out if I hadn't already resigned," he said strongly so that CJ could hear every word. "I took a position with Senator Martin."

"Martin as in the junior senator from North Dakota Herb Martin?" Donna asked.

"He'd be the one. His deputy chief quit last month and he's been looking for a replacement," Jack explained.

"You're giving up…"

Jack cut CJ off. "She can't really make the switch herself and I wouldn't ask her to. Rhode Island's got two Democratic senators, both incumbents who don't show any signs of retiring in the foreseeable future, regardless of the fact she doesn't meet the age limit," he explained. "The way I figure it, she's got to stay in office pretty much continuously if she wants to have any chance at a run for the top."

"You're giving up the one of the most powerful positions you can get in the House without running for election…"

This time it was Donna that Jack cut off. He sighed, "Plus this way there's experience in both Senate and House proceedings. That is, if you're looking at the political side of things. If you're not looking at that, then you're down to the simple facts that she's my best friend and I do love her."

"A couple words of advice," Donna said, reaching out to pat Jack's shoulder reassuringly, "next time start where you just finished."

"And maybe say it from one knee, instead of from her chair," CJ added.

"Oh, and actually asking her might help."


	19. Tempting Fate

_"Governor Young," the reporter called, "I wonder if you would take a question."_

_Charlie inadvertently half-turned toward the reporter, even as he continued to walk past. He was well-used to being trailed by reporters asking him questions, but there was something about the voice of this one that he recognized._

_"Sarah?" he asked, confirming that the face did, in fact, match the voice. He was surprised to see her out of Washington._

_"Governor Young," she repeated, "would you take a question?" She only called them by their titles when she was working. It was a signal to both them and to herself that she was working and whatever happened was on the record. It wasn't until they dropped the titles and formalities that they were free to speak naturally._

_Although Charlie didn't usually stop to talk to reporters, not even Sarah, he made the snap decision to take a few questions, right there in the middle of the parking lot; amazingly enough, he was on schedule for a change and had a few extra minutes. "Sure, I'll take a question from each of you."_

_Sarah calmly pulled her pencil from behind her ear while the others scrambled in their bags and pockets. Patiently, she let her three companions ask their questions first; they were all from local papers and asked about the difficulties balancing the state budget with the narrow Democratic majority. Sarah's question was different entirely._

_"Governor Young, there are rumours floating around Washington that you're already considering running in the next presidential primaries. Would you care to make a comment?" She looked at him expectantly, even though she already knew the answer._

_"Well, Miss Sutherland," he began, "I've only just been elected governor of New Hampshire and am looking forward to getting to the business of running the state. I made a commitment to the people of New Hampshire and I intend to follow it through. So, in answer to your question, I will not be considering a run at the White House so long as I remain governor." He paused, thinking for a moment. "I think you wasted your question, the primaries aren't for another two years."  
_

* * *

"The voters of the Rhode Island First are faced with an interesting decision tonight. All of the names on the ballot are new; none of them have ever appeared there before. But the people are still being given the chance to vote for their incumbent representative," the news anchor explained, every stand of her platinum blonde hair glued in place against the gentle breeze. "In a love story more suited to Hollywood than to Washington, Congresswoman Alexandra Cunningham, now Alexandra McCosham, was married to…"

Her voice trailed off as Jack changed the channel. "Where are the preliminary results?" Jack groaned, jabbing at the remote control. "We moved heaven and earth to get satellite feed from all over the country and I still can't find out who's winning in Rhode Island, Maryland, or Connecticut."

"You know, Jack," Herb said jokingly, "we are running a race of our own here."

"Seventy-three percent of the polling stations are giving us favourable preliminary reports, another eighteen percent are still going to be counting for the next hour, and for some strange reason, nine percent are still open," Jack listed off, flipping from one channel to the other again.

"How do you do that?" one of the junior staffers questioned. "I mean, you looked at the results sheet for like thirty seconds."

"I can give you a bunch of polling data," Jack answered. "Congress is looking like it's going to be Republican unless all of the New England states go Democratic. The Senate however, looks like it's going to run Democrat for a change with the way the Mid-West split. Florida is almost certainly going to go Republican but the rest of the Eastern Seaboard was looking Democrat a week ago when Gallup ran its last poll. Presidential race was too close to call going in: our guy was at forty-five and their guy was at forty-six five. That one could go either way."

The staffer wandered away, mouth hanging in awe. Herb and Jack were left fairly isolated as the rest of the campaign staff huddled around the televisions playing local stations as they watched the numbers come in. "You know, Jack," Herb started, "I'm sorry that I couldn't give you a better position."

"What are you talking about, Senator?" Jack asked.

"You took a big demotion when you took this job. Half of Washington thought that you had completely lost your mind, especially after the Congresswoman had said no." Herb paused. "Don't think that I don't know that Clift offered you your job back six or eight times."

"Twelve," Jack corrected. "And she never really said no. She just didn't say yes right away."

"And by right away, you mean she didn't say yes for six months until you pushed her into a pool at one of the parties for Governor Seaborn's re-election," Robert Zachowski, the chief of staff, broke in. He held one beer out to Jack and another out to Herb.

**------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

"I suppose that you could say that."

**------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

"And I suppose that you could say that Franklin Roosevelt was a Republican too," Toby countered, rolling his eyes. "Honestly, Alex."

From the other corner of the room came a faint popping sound and Toby was instantly spinning around, bellowing, "If that was champagne, that cork had better be back in the bottle within the next ten seconds or so help me…"

"Toby," Alex pointed out softly, "that was the sound of the porters closing the shutters. The weathermen have been predicting a storm hitting most of the Eastern Seaboard for the past couple of hours and they're starting to batten things down. No one would dare even think of opening a bottle of champagne until victory was officially declared; you know why?"

"It would be tempting fate," Toby replied, nodding his head at her. "I trained you well." He chomped at his cigar a little more and resumed his pacing back and forth across the small room. "How much longer until the polling stations close?"

"Another half hour or so," she answered, checking her watch. "Hopefully the ballots get counted before the storm really settles in. There's an emergency generator, but we're not going to be able to get anything other than local information, if we even get that."

"Any word from Jack?"

"None yet. He won't be able to phone until the race there has been called officially." She grinned over at Toby. "He wouldn't want to tempt fate for Herb Martin anyway."

"Are you mocking me?" Toby asked, stepping back so that he could regard her with mock incredulousness. "I come all the way out here to sit with you on election night because your husband has to be in the wilds of North Dakota and this is the thanks I get?"

"The wilds of North Dakota?" she laughed. "They have power and everything there, Toby. Have you ever been to North Dakota?"

"Rabble-rousing," Toby stormed. "That's what you're doing: rabble-rousing."

Alex laughed. "That may be what I'm doing, but it's definitely not what I should be doing."

"Don't tell me that you haven't written your speeches yet," Toby groaned.

"You know," she answered nonchalantly, "if I wait long enough, I only have to write one."

"You are beyond impossible, you feminist…"

She cut him off, laughing again.

**------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

"Impervious."****

******------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

"Donna," Josh whined.

"Joshua, no amount of whining you can do is going to make them count the votes any faster," Donna told him, throwing her hand up into the air in frustration. "Honestly, the kids aren't even this bad!"

"Where are the kids anyway? I don't think I've seen them yet today," Josh commented, looking around the room to see if he could spot them.

Donna turned to one of her aides, complaining, "And he didn't see why CJ had to come and make sure they did their homework and didn't throw a party."

"Hey," Josh protested, "I knew they were with CJ. I just wanted to know where they are right now."

"Did Dad forget about us again?" Joan asked, coming around from behind Josh and into his line of vision.

"I didn't forget about you," Josh maintained. "I've got a mind like a steel trap; nothing gets through it."

"Except Mom's birthday last year," Joan started listing. "And your anniversary before that, and her birthday the year before."

"And I think that you forgot your anniversary that year too," Noah chimed in.

"I don't think that you've ever remembered my birthday," CJ added. "It's okay, Josh. There's no need to buy me anything. I'll just take the cash."

"Ah, CJ," Josh greeted her, "how wonderful to see you again."

"I saw you this morning at breakfast," CJ reminded him flatly.

"And I didn't see you after that. So it's nice to see you again," Josh recovered quickly.

"Secret plan to fight inflation?" CJ asked Donna.

"I don't let him out in public very often," Donna agreed.

"You do realise that I'm right here?" Josh protested. Both women continued to ignore him.

"Have you heard anything from Toby yet?" Donna queried anxiously. Alex's opponents had been polling fairly closely behind her for most of the race.

CJ shook her head. "He won't phone until the race has been officially called. If we want to know anything, we're better off checking the Internet."

"If we want to know about anything we're better off checking the Internet," Josh ranted. "We should have hard numbers coming up from the West Coast and preliminary numbers from some of the other states. This is the best chance we've had to get a Democrat in the White House since Worrell and we can't even find out who's winning."

"The cable's out for the area and we couldn't get satellite feed set up in time," Donna explained softly as Josh continued.

"I mean, honestly. Nicholson's screwed stuff up for the past eight years and we've got to get the damn Republicans out of there so that we can have a chance to fix it back up again. The new Republican guy, Sheldon, hasn't got a clue what's going on. And here we are, not able to find out any of it except over some Internet site." He paused for a second, realizing that no one was listening.

"The only thing that could make this better is if the power were to go out," he grumbled to himself, stalking off to find something to drink.

He hadn't gotten more than a few steps when the lights flickered. "Don't you dare," he warned them. He took another two steps and the room was plunged into blackness. "Okay," he said, "now someone's in trouble."


	20. Friends First

**Never Lark or Even Eagle**

**The choices that one makes determine what path their life will follow. Sometimes the choices are simple. Sometimes the choices are inconsequential. But sometimes they are difficult. And sometimes they have the potential to change everything. However, at some point in time, everyone is called to make choices that fall within the final two categories.**

**When those difficult or life-changing choices have to be made, it comes down to the metaphorical choice that Robert Frost faced. Which road should we take? But, as always, the end of the road is hidden around a bend or concealed in the foliage of the trees that line the route. What direction the road will take once it has passed out of sight is beyond anyone's knowledge. We can only make the choice and hope for the best.**

**Choices, in combination with circumstances, are what can make the difference between a lark and an eagle. We can never hope to reach the stars if we never dare to leave the ground. A choice is what can take an ordinary man or woman and make them stand above the crowd. Some choices require a steadfastness of character. Others require faith in something bigger. But, no matter what motivates the choice, a choice must nonetheless be made.**

**At times, we are fortunate to have friends and family who will offer advice in an effort to make the choices easier. But sometimes they only make the choices more complicated. Sometimes they are the ones who point out the other paths that branch off the main one. Leo McGarry did that for Jed Bartlet once. But the favour wasn't returned to the same person. In returning the favour, Jed went on to inspire a new generation by pointing out the choices that they had never before considered.**

**

* * *

**

"Alex, could I have a minute?" Sarah asked.

Alex paused for a second, mid-stride. She was running late for yet another meeting in the steady stream that made up her day. "On or off the record?" she responded.

Sarah sighed. "Honestly, a little of both."

"I think I've got a few minutes at four. Check with one of my aides and they'll write you in as soon as I have soon free time."

"Thank you, Congresswoman."

"Tell Nora that I told you to call," Alex offered, resuming her hurried walk. She was running late, again.

"Congresswoman, a quick word."

Alex sighed and turned to look at whoever had called her name this time. Clift, now the House Minority Leader, was coming up behind her. "Of course," she answered. "Hopefully you don't mind if we walk and talk. I'm running late for Committee."

"I don't know if anything would get done if we all weren't running perpetually late," he commented, falling into step beside her. "Anyway, I've heard rumblings of Republican discontent over this latest finance reform package you guys are working on."

"When isn't there Republican discontent over finance reform packages?" Alex asked. "I can't think of a single measure that we've proposed that they haven't had something to complain about."

"We're down four seats in the House," he started. "We can get some good pieces of legislation through if we're willing to work with the moderate Republicans. But we're not going to get any of that done if we keep pushing some of the stuff that we're pushing."

"What are you saying?" she asked, stopping in the middle of the hall.

"You're still young, Alex," he said with a sigh. "You'll have time to pass some of these other things later. But right now, if we want to be able to make some serious bipartisan changes, we're going to have to shelve some things until after the next set of elections."

"We're not even six months into this term," she replied. "What exactly are you talking about shelving for two years other than the finance reform?"

"You're not going to like some of this," he warned. "Actually, you're probably not going to like most of it."

"Education," she guessed. He nodded. "Health care." Another nod. "The gun package." He nodded again. "Welfare reforms."

"Sometimes you've got to play the game," he offered, hoping that it would placate her. He really didn't need a scene in the middle of a crowded hallway.

"Is there anything that we haven't sold out?" she exploded, colour rising in her cheeks. "I mean, honestly. We're only four seats down. If we can get a handful of the liberal Republicans on board some of those things have a chance at passing."

"This isn't the time," he continued. "They're dropping the tax cuts and picking up both the agriculture and the environmental bills."

"Let me get this straight," Alex said. "We're dropping the five things that most of us campaigned on in return for the Republicans giving up a plan for tax cuts that wasn't financially viable and picking up the two things on our agenda we could have gotten the votes for anyway?"

"Thanks for you time, Congresswoman."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Why do I get the distinct impression that we're being screwed?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Probably because we are," Ted answered. "Something about this doesn't ring right. This isn't the kind of deal that you make six months in. This is the kind of deal you make with six months left."

"I can't believe that he would make it a walk and talk," she continued, stabbing at her salad. "It's not like it was even a sit-down conversation or anything."

"At least he bothered to tell you," he responded, dipping his fries in ketchup and looking around the mess. "I bet you're one of the few people he actually bothered to search out. He's probably detailing junior staffers to talk to most of the rest of us."

She rolled her eyes and reached over to take one of his fries. "It's probably a courtesy thing since Jack used to work for him," she explained.

"I'd beg to differ," Ted told her. "I tend to think that it's because you're probably the most outspoken person in the House who hasn't been there for twenty years. You've still got the ethics and morals that he threw out the window long ago. I think that scares him as a politician."

"Well," she said, blushing a little and steering the conversation back to the main issue, "I think that I smell a rat. And I'm probably not the only one."

"I'm smelling whatever you're smelling," Ted reassured her. "I'll ask around and find out who else Clift has sought out today. I'll give you a call later tonight and let you know."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I'll be looking forward to your call."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Toby placed the phone back in the cradle and turned to CJ. "I hate having to suck up to those people."

"I know you do," she soothed. "But I do so love watching you."

"You're sadistic," he retorted. "You like watching others suffer, don't you?"

She shrugged. "I don't like watching others suffer, just you."

"And that makes it so much better," he answered, reaching for the remote to turn up the volume on the TV. "Just for that, we're watching my show tonight."

"And that makes it different from any other night how?" She stood and started walking out of the room.

"Sass," Toby called out to her. "I will not tolerate sass."

CJ laughed. "Then I'm sorry, but you married the wrong woman. I'm going to get something to eat."

"You didn't ask me if I wanted anything," he grumbled, loud enough that she could hear him.

"Why would I do something like that?" she replied. He could hear her pull open the fridge door and start rummaging around inside it.

Toby settled back into the couch cushions and changed the channel to CNN. It was a habit that he had never been able to fully break himself of. "CJ," he yelled.

"No," she replied, "I will not bring you a sandwich."

"Not that. I think that you'd better get in here."

"Why?" she asked, rounding the corner to see what the big deal was.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"There's something that you need to see."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Josh, I can't believe that you'd be so romantic," Donna cooed, linking her fingers through his. "It's not even an anniversary or anything."

"Are you warm enough?" he questioned. "Your coat isn't very thick." It was cool for a May evening.

"I'll be fine," she answered, swatting at his shoulder with her free hand. "I've gotten used to my husband not being enough of a gentleman to offer me his jacket. Now, what are we going to see?"

"It's a surprise," he responded excitedly, picking up the pace a little.

"Is it a good surprise?"

Josh started to answer, but his cell phone rang, cutting him off. He untwined their fingers and reached into his pocket to take out his phone. "Josh Lyman," he barked, annoyed at having their evening interrupted.

He paused, listening to the person on the other end of the line, before responding, "No, Donna and I are out for a walk to see the thing."

There was another pause and Donna watched all of the worry lines on Josh's face make an appearance. "We're closer to home. We'll head back right away. Thanks for calling." He flipped the phone closed and turned to start back in the direction of their townhouse.

"Josh," Donna inquired, "what's happened?"

"I don't know. We're just supposed to find ourselves a TV."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I don't think I like the sounds of this."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You're probably not going to, Sarah."

She sighed, moving a box so that she could sit down in the chair before Danny's desk. "I really don't think I like the sounds of this."

"Why this couldn't have happened a year ago," he said, "I'll never know. Or even a year from now, or whenever the new guy has himself set up here." It was Danny's turn to sigh. "Of all the times for the Post to be without a decent editor."

"You still haven't told me what happened," Sarah noted, her reporter's instincts starting to suspect that they had a real scoop here. "It's only fair. After all, you did drag me away from a hot date tonight."

"You remember that thing you mentioned earlier?" Danny asked. "The one that Alex mentioned during your little meeting this afternoon?"

"You mean that little fool's errand what's-his-name sent me on without realizing that I know Alex or the other thing that's off the record?" she inquired.

"It's not so off the record anymore," Danny answered. "I don't know what source CNN has, but they started leaking tidbits about an hour ago. They don't really have any hard facts, but you can bet that this news cycle is going to be dominated by rumours about the whole thing."

Sarah sighed. "And we're about the only paper already in position to get the facts. Have you called anyone else yet?"

"I didn't want to do it unless you were willing to. They're friends first and sources second. It's a lesson that I learned the hard way a long time ago," Danny cautioned.

"You're going to want to get Vernon and Nadia," Sarah started. "They're the best researchers. Jeff has a good handle on the political side of things; you might want to get him up here too." This was too big of a story not to start moving on it. Every reporter's instinct that she had was screaming for her to start writing now.

Danny rubbed his hands together. "We haven't had a story like this fall into our laps in quite a while. This is almost Watergate big." He paused, looking at the black phone sitting on his desk. "Do you want to call or should I?"

Sarah hesitated for a second. First and foremost, Alex was her friend. She couldn't forget that. "I'll do it," she replied firmly. This was the first time that her career and Alex's were on a collision course. Hopefully they both emerged unscathed.

She picked up the phone and dialed a number she knew well. It was picked up after the second ring. "Hey, Alex," Sarah began. "Sorry to get you up but CNN started running a line very close to the story you told me this afternoon. We don't know what their source is, but the story's broken. Would you mind if all of that off the record stuff you said this afternoon goes on the record so we can start investigating?"


	21. Pusillanimous

_"Look, Josh," Harrington said, leaning back in his chair, "I don't think I like what you're insinuating here."_

_"Senator," Josh started, running his fingers through his wiry hair, "I'm not trying to insinuate anything. I don't think that you knew anything about what Clift was doing in the House. Hell, Jack McCosham worked for the man and even he didn't know what was going on."_

_"But you couldn't help but bring up the fact that Erwin Clift and I used to play golf together every Saturday afternoon while the weather held," Harrington growled. "I've been subpoenaed already and been found by the Committee to not know anything. Just like your boy McCosham there."_

_"I mentioned the fact that you used to play golf together because I wanted to know if you and your wife were free Saturday afternoon for an early dinner at our place," Josh sighed, trying not to get angry with the man. Years of practice had helped him rein his temper in while talking to recalcitrant senators, but only a little. "Did you miss that part of the conversation?"_

_Harrington reached up a hand to twirl the end of his moustache. Josh didn't know how to take the gesture. Was Harrington getting ready to blow his top in the style of a Southern gentleman? Or was he just thinking? Josh hoped it was the latter. They had enough trouble right now without Josh causing a split between the two of the strongest Senators._

_"I'll have Georgiana whip up some of her peach cobbler to bring along," he said after a moment. "And I'll make sure that I'm up on my issues. I'm assuming this is more than just a simple meal."_

_"It's more of a strategy session than a anything else," Josh confessed. "But have no fear, there will be food."_

* * *

"Did we ever find out who told CNN the bribery stories?" Sarah asked, cradling her cell phone between her head and her shoulder. Using a skill she had picked up from Alex, she jotted notes down on the cover of her notebook as she walked. "Okay, thanks for the info. I'll be in touch."

In one quick motion, she reached up to snag her cell phone and stick her pen behind her ear. She mistimed it a little and nearly dropped the phone as she tried to snap it closed, but recovered the fumble. Neatly slipping the phone into her bag, she turned to the person beside her.

"Thanks for meeting me, Mark," she told him. "I know that you're busy with all of the last minute things for your book."

"It's no problem, Sarah," he answered. "I'm glad to be getting back in on the political side of things. And I don't really have to much else to do for the book until my editor is finished with it."

"Good," she responded, laughing. "Then we've got time for a cup of coffee while we talk. I've been dying for a good caffeine fix all morning."

Mark shook his head and followed her to the nearest coffee shop. "I'm guessing that you need a Republican insight to the whole thing?" he guessed as she placed her order with the cashier.

"Things happened way too fast to go through normal channels. And now most of our Republican sources have either cut us off for breaking the thing or are getting ready to be subpoenaed. The Democrats are a little better, but Alex and Ted can't give preferential treatment right now," she clarified, motioning for him to order something.

In the throng of people around the counter, they didn't get a chance to talk again until they had found themselves a relatively secluded table in the back corner. "I'm still a little foggy on the whole timeline thing," he admitted. "Comes with not having a cable hook-up."

"You've got that fixed?" she asked, sipping her coffee.

"You better believe that I got it fixed," he affirmed. "The second the cable company opened the next morning, I was on the phone demanding that someone come and take care of it. However, what with the speed the cable companies are known for, I didn't get anything until almost a week later."

"Monday morning, Clift said something to Alex about having to play the political game. But she didn't trust whatever he was telling her because he was selling out almost everything that had been on the Democratic agenda, even some of the things that maybe could have been passed," Sarah explained. "Anyway, she mentioned it to me, off the record, when I met with her that afternoon. I agreed to help her look into it, still off the record. But it broke on CNN that night."

"How did CNN get the whole story?"

"That's the thing, they didn't. They had some half-baked accusations on some of the senior Republican representatives in the House. I had told Danny the story after I had gotten back to my desk. I was out when it broke, but he called me in when he saw it on CNN," Sarah told him.

"Did you tell him everything?" Mark questioned.

She nodded. "He was in the same position when Jed was in the White House. He knew perfectly clear that whatever was said off the record had to stay off the record unless we cleared it with Alex and Ted. They gave the okay, but we still didn't know what we were looking at until Wednesday afternoon when we started phoning in favours."

Mark shook his head. "I can't believe how far this goes."

"I know," Sarah answered.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Why would the House Democratic leader sell out to the Republicans?"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"That seems to be the question of the year," Donna commented, stretching her long legs out under the table.

"I would imagine that Josh tends to phrase it quite a bit stronger," CJ stated, turning a critical eye to her salad.

"The general thread of it seems to be wondering why the pusillanimous coward sold his soul to the earth-bound incarnations of the devil," Donna revealed with a tense smile. "But that's only when he's calmed down enough to string together coherent sentences."

"Pusillanimous?" CJ repeated, eyebrows raised.

"For some reason, I tend to think that he learned that word just for occasions like this," Donna sighed. "I hope that he cools down soon because we've got a hard fight ahead of us."

"When is the Committee starting to hand out subpoenas?" CJ asked.

"Probably early next week. We're figuring that almost all of the senior representatives, both Democratic and Republican," Donna answered. "And most of their staffers."

"And former staffers," CJ added. "Jack's expecting his, right?"

"Josh and Sam have been talking to him, trying to figure out what he knows and if anything could be held against him. But they don't want to get in too far in case they wind up getting dragged into it themselves." Donna sighed again. "Josh isn't so pleased about that. He doesn't want the Senate dragged into this at all. And he doesn't want to make it any bigger than it already is."

"His way of keeping it small is to call Clift and the party leadership parsimonious cowards?" CJ inquired incredulously.

"Pusillanimous," Donna corrected.

"Whatever," CJ replied with a dismissive wave of her hand. "What's the best case scenario for this whole thing?"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"The senior Republicans are ousted for taking bribes and the senior Democrats aren't re-elected because they sold out their constituents."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"And what's the most realistic outcome?" Sarah questioned, jotting notes down in her notebook, her coffee set aside and long ago forgotten.

"Most of the senior Republicans are ousted for taking bribes, some of them are prosecuted. Some of the senior Democrats receive the same treatment once they've been investigated; the rest of the senior Democrats probably not re-elected for selling out their constituents. There's a general backlash against politicians in general and the Republicans sweep through with a large majority in the midterms because taking bribes isn't as bad as selling people out," Mark speculated as Sarah's pencil flew across her page, trying to keep up with him.

"How about the next general election?" Sarah asked, still writing down parts of Mark's last answer.

Mark shrugged. "It'll really depend on what happens between then and now." He stopped, waiting for her to stop writing. "Off the record?"

"Sure," she answered dropping her pen.

"Alex and Ted are the whistleblowers on this thing, even if it came about in a roundabout way, right?" he probed, wanting to be sure of his facts before he said anything too conclusive.

"Yeah," Sarah confirmed. "She and Ted were the first ones to clue into there was something going on. They did some research of their own and they were the two that turned the whole mess over to the House Official Conduct Committee. Why?"

"How she conducts herself during the next few months may very well make or break her chances to be president," he declared softly.

"But she won't be able to run for another eight years," Sarah said in surprise. "And she probably won't do it for another twelve."

"Doesn't matter," Mark answered. "What's the first thing that comes to your mind when I say Nixon?"

"Watergate," Sarah responded instantly.

"That didn't have a political hero because the press were the ones who really blew the whistle. This is ugly, Sarah, and there's no way that Alex would use it for her own political gain."

"She'd be angry that we even suggested it," Sarah agreed, starting to understand what Mark was getting at.

"I'm a Republican," Mark pointed out. "I'm not going to go around giving political pointers to the other side or discussing these sorts of things with reporters."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"But in a conversation with an old friend, things are a little different."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Right," Josh scoffed, "so long as those two friends are from the same camp."

"Josh," Chris said pointedly. "This isn't about playing golf or trying to get noticed. This is about you're the best guy I know for this stuff and I wanted your advice."

Josh passed a hand down over his face, shook his head, and sighed. "Look, Chris, I'm sorry. This thing is just…"

"I know," Chris answered. "It's like that for all of us, only we're waiting for the subpoenas to come down and you don't have to worry about that so much. Half of the House is wetting themselves and the other half is trying to figure out if they're going to have to exchange pinstripes for the jailhouse kind."

"How much longer before they have to figure out what they're going to do with this?" Josh queried, pulling a legal pad out of his top drawer. Before Chris had a chance to answer, Josh was already jotting a rough timeline down on his paper, muttering aloud to himself as he went.

"Monday was the start of the investigation; CNN broke the Republican rumours the same night. Thursday the Post broke the whole story, both sides." Josh looked up at Chris, asking, "What day did Alex and Ted file the complaints with the Committee?"

"Wednesday afternoon."

Josh crossed out the last line he had written and replaced it with the note 'Complaint filed', writing that the story had broken on the line beneath it. "How long was it in the Committee before they set up the investigative subcommittee?"

"Two weeks. They couldn't keep it any longer without invoking the considerable wrath of the press and they couldn't move it any faster under House rules." Chris shook his head and sighed. "God, Josh, I don't know how this could have happened. I mean, Clift has been there for decades."

Josh ignored the question and kept jotting down his notes. After a moment he sighed, "Next Tuesday, the earliest. I don't think they'll wait any longer than the Tuesday after that. People are going to want to see things happening so this is going to be fast-tracked as much as it can be. I'm sure they'll be taking testimony by the last week in June."

"That's what we figured too," Chris responded. "We figure anyone who's been there longer than ten years, anyone in a senior position in either party, all of the Florida representatives, Keegan, both McCoshams, any senior staffers to most of the representatives being called, and anyone who's worked with Clift or LeClerc for the past six years."

"That's at the very least," Josh confirmed. "I can't give you legal advice…"

"I wouldn't want it," Chris interrupted. "You're a crappy lawyer, Josh."

Josh glared at him. "As I was saying, I can't give you legal advice, but if it were me, I'd have everyone making up lists of all of their interns, staffers, assistants, campaign donators, and anyone who's had policy influence in the past six or eight years."

Chris reached up to rub at the bridge of his nose as he stood. "I don't know how we got into this. I really don't know."

"With both the House leaders embroiled in this thing, who's running stuff down there?" Josh couldn't help but ask.

"Not much of anyone yet," Chris answered honestly. "Anyone with the experience is either being implicated or is probably a major witness. Pretty much the only people not involved at all are first or second term and don't have a clue which way is up. The people in the middle are trying to help as best they can, but it takes time for the cream to rise to the top, especially when no one's sure of who to trust."

"Who's it looking like?"

"Morano, Pichel, Sneider, or Burris for the Republicans. Holloway or O'Shea have the seniority on our side, but Keegan and McCosham are the two that seem to be rising to the task."

"Those two aren't exactly freshmen anymore," Josh pointed out.

"Three terms doesn't exactly make you a senior either," Chris noted. "Take care of yourself and stay out of reach of the subpoenas."

"It'd be easier if I didn't have you guys coming to me," Josh complained, grinning at Chris for the first time in the conversation.

"Well, you know that it's only because Sam's out in California," Chris shot back, returning the grin and making a hasty exit.


	22. Day Eight

**With Silent, Lifting Mind**

**Groucho Marx, while admittedly not a world-renown political scientist, once called politics "the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies." While this was just his opinion, it is unfortunately an opinion that is shared by too many. These people expect politicians to be blessed with the foresight and the moral strength that are needed to do things perfectly every time. But politicians are nothing but ordinary people elevated into the spotlight and expected to fix problems that often have no good solutions.**

**It is impossible to predict what troubles lie ahead or who will be called upon to fix them. Past generations have had to solve the problems of Watergate or deal with the ramifications of a withheld illness. This newest generation of politicians, our generation, will have their own problems to deal with. There is no telling how serious they will be or who will be found equal to the task.**

**If it were possible to predict the future, many of the political difficulties that are encountered would likely be avoidable. But even with the benefit of hindsight, the closest we can come to being able to see everything clearly, the proper solutions to the problems are still obscured in partisanship and pinning fault. There is no reason to assume that the future will hold anything different. However, hope still remains because politics isn't something that one merely tries once and gives up in difficulties.**

**Politics is something dynamic. By its very nature, politics is something that grows and changes with the nation. It is something that adapts to the re-ordering of society. It bows to the whims of the people because the people are the base of politics. But a foundation is best used when it is built upon. Politicians are those few who dare to scale the foundations of the people and chance building further.**

* * *

"Hey, Alex," Ted called. "Are you before the Committee again today?"

"Yeah. You?"

"Yeah, wait up and we'll walk together." He hurried up to her, avoiding the knots of people clustered in the too narrow hall. When he had reached her side, he groaned, "I'll never know why people pick this hallway to stand and talk in. It's only the narrowest hallway in the entire building."

"It's probably not," she disagreed quietly, not really caring to get into an argument with him.

He let the matter drop. It wasn't worth picking a fight over the width of a hallway when in less than an hour they'd be before the Committee on Official Conduct testifying, again. "What day is this for you?" he asked.

"Eight," she answered.

"Seven for me." He paused, thinking. "How come you've had eight?"

"They had to excuse me Monday so that I didn't puke up my breakfast in front of them," she answered with a falsely cheerful smile pasted on her face.

"Oh," was all that he could think of to say. And then after a moment, "You feeling any better?"

"Not really," she answered miserably. "There has to be some kind of flu going around or something."

"Why aren't you at home in bed if you're sick?" he questioned.

"This is a Congressional inquiry. It's not like it's kindergarten," she responded, tightening her lips. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to make a quick stop before we go back to face the dragons." And without another word, she disappeared into the nearest ladies' washroom.

Ted leaned up against the wall and waited.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I can't think of anyone else who has the flu right now."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Neither can I," Jack agreed. "But we're all worried about these hearings and the two of you have been trying to pick up the slack for most of the Democratic representatives for the past month, since the subcommittee was set up. She's probably just overtired."

"Probably," Ted said reluctantly. "But it's not going to get any better. Justice is talking about trying people on felony charges and then we've got to worry about motions for expulsion. Plus, the Committee is talking of carrying on over summer recess which means we've got to stick around in DC until who knows when."

Jack shook his head. "What a mess this has turned out to be. Thank God I'm not with Clift anymore."

"I can't believe that he could hide that much from you. You were his deputy chief. It's not like you were an intern or anything," Mark exclaimed.

"I was in charge of strategic planning and bullying the junior representatives to fall in line. I didn't get to do any of the high-end stuff. Clift and his chief of staff always took care of that stuff personally. I thought it was a little weird at the time, but the two of them had been working together since the mid-eighties," Jack explained. "And the only reason I got as high as deputy chief was because Merrell gave me a good recommendation and the guy they had had in my position had a heart attack and died about two months before I came along."

"So, does it look like the Senate's going to be dragged into this?" Ted asked. "They haven't subpoenaed anyone from up there except you and Harrington, right?"

"Susanne Harrington," Jack burst out suddenly, biting down on his lip as if to withhold an expletive.

"Daughter of Roger Harrington," Ted supplied with a groan, "and niece of William Harrington."

"Who is, apart from Donna and the Whip, the most influential Democrat currently sitting in the Senate," Jack continued.

"She interned with you," Ted stated.

"It should be okay," Jack started hopefully. "Harrington and Clift were golf buddies and the Committee already cleared Harrington. They confirmed that he knew nothing."

"Did they know that his niece interned under you while you were working with Clift?"

"She was assigned to me," Jack clarified. "I hadn't met her before she showed up for work one day and Clift told me that she was my new intern."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Yeah, but do they know?"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alex shook her head miserably. "No. With everything that's going on, this is pretty much the worst time in the world for this to have happened."

"Think of it this way," Donna offered, "maybe you'll at least have an excuse to get out of the hearings for a while."

"Can we save the happy thoughts for a minute," Alex asked, leaning back towards the toilet, "because I think that I'm going to be sick again."

"Have some more ginger ale," Donna suggested, passing the can over. "It helped when I was pregnant with Noah and Joan."

Alex took a careful sip. "Thanks for meeting me for lunch," she said, smiling weakly.

"It's my pleasure," Donna answered.

"Ginger ale and crackers on a washroom floor," Alex joked, leaning her head back against the wall. "My compliments to the chef."

Donna laughed. "You must be feeling a little better at least."

"A little," Alex admitted. "How much longer is this supposed to last?"

"Well," Donna said carefully, "most of the time only for the first few months."

'And I'll probably be in front of the Committee for about the same amount of time," Alex complained. "I think they're getting tired of having to excuse me mid-way through a session so that they don't wind up wearing whatever I managed to choke down for breakfast."

"If they'd prefer the alternative," Donna proposed with a laugh. Then she got more serious. "You're going to have to tell them."

"But first I'm going to have to tell Jack."

"You could try bringing it up in casual conversation," Donna told her with a grin. "For example, 'Donna and I had lunch together today after I was done being raked over the coals by the Committee. My doctor called, we're having a baby. Oh, and the Mets won last night.' Of course, that always works better if he cheers for the Mets."

"Unfortunately for me," Alex replied, reaching for another cracker, "he doesn't cheer for the Mets."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Okay, then don't use that one."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"That's good advice, Toby," Josh retorted. "Thank you for your infinite wisdom."

"Do I detect sarcasm?" Toby questioned. "Do I detect sarcasm coming from the very person who just finished asking me to rewrite a speech for their wife?"

"I refuse to answer that question under protection of the Fifth Amendment," Josh answered quickly.

"Been practicing for your anticipated appearance in front of the Committee for Un-American Distractions?" Toby quipped.

"When did you start calling it that?" Josh asked.

"About ten minutes ago, when I thought of it."

"I think that's a very dangerous comparison to make," Josh pointed out. "This is enough of a witch hunt already without having people making those comparisons."

"When'd you get the subpoena?"

"Yesterday afternoon," Josh sighed. "I've been working pretty closely with Harrington and it's well-known that Donna and I are friendly with Jack, Alex, and Sarah."

"I'm surprised that they cleared Harrington as fast as they did," Toby commented. "They two of them played golf together almost every week for what, thirty years?"

"Toby, the two of us worked together every day when we were in the White House for sometimes twelve hours a day," Josh began.

"On a light week," Toby interjected.

"Did you notice that something was wrong after Rosslyn until I put my hand through a window?" Josh asked.

"Well, there was the thing with the bagpipes," Toby protested. Josh waited quietly for a moment until Toby admitted, "No, not really."

"But now what would your first thought be if I started avoiding music, snapping at everyone for no reason, and doing the other things I was doing then?"

"I'd think that your PTSD was making itself known again."

"My point is this," Josh said, "it's easy to hide things from people if they don't know what they're looking for. And no one is ever looking for something like this."

"Just because you're not looking for it doesn't mean that it's not going to jump up and bite you in the butt."

Josh couldn't help but roll his eyes, even if he knew that Toby couldn't see it over the phone.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You should make sure you put that in the speech."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alex reached up to rub one of her temples. "It's only taken us an hour to come up with what we need to say, now we just have to figure out how to say it," Alex sighed. "I've got another day in front of the Committee to look forward to tomorrow and I would love to get some sleep before then, but that doesn't appear likely to happen."

"You should really look at hiring a speechwriter, Alli," Jack suggested, tossing aside his pad of paper and coming to stand behind her and peer over her shoulder at what she had written.

"I really need to look into a lot of things, Jack," she answered. "And I haven't exactly had the time to do any of it."

"Maybe Toby and CJ would be willing to come stay for a couple of weeks and help out. I'm sure that CJ is itching to get into this one and I know Toby is already giving Donna a hand with crisis management in the Senate," Jack commented. "It might be worth asking."

Alex nodded. "I'll call first thing tomorrow morning. I think that I'm going to need the help."

"Is this the Alexandra that I know?" Jack asked in mock alarm. "You must have more than just the flu to admit that you need help so readily," he teased, reaching out a hand to feel her forehead.

She swatted his hand away, turning in her chair so that she could face him. "You know that I hate it when people call me Alexandra," she protested.

"And a nonviolent reaction to being called by her full name," Jack continued, stepping back with a look of fake shock on his face. He pointed a finger at her accusingly. "What have you done with my wife, you imposter?"

Alex sighed. "Jack."

"That's my name," he answered glibly.

"Do you want to sit down and shut up for a minute? There's something that I think we need to talk about."


	23. The Ruling Elite

_"Look," Sarah declared, slapping her article down on the desk in front of her editor, "here's your story. I got it just like any other reporter. Just because I know these people doesn't make them any more likely to give me the stories."_

_"Sarah, calm down. I just thought that it would be good to move you away from politics for a while," he told her. "There's an opening in foreign affairs if you're interested."_

_"For the past month I've been sent on trivial errands that the greenest recruit could have taken care of," Sarah protested. "I've got almost seven years of White House experience with this paper, plus the background I built up while I was with _Inside Politics_. Could you please explain why I'm being pulled out?"_

_"You're a good reporter, Sarah, probably one of our best. But the rumours going around are that one of your friends is probably going to run for something bigger sooner or later and I don't want to lose our most experienced political reporter if that happens."_

_"What makes you think that you would lose me when that happens?" she demanded, unaware of the language that she had used._

_But the choice of words wasn't lost on him. "Because you know who it is and probably when it'll be. If they don't give you a spot on their campaign staff, it'd be a conflict of interest to have you reporting on it. If you start now, you can get foreign affairs experience or editorial experience and stay on at the _Post_. But unless you give me more details, I've got to start preparing for the eventualities."_

* * *

"So," Mark started, taking a sip of coffee from his cup and lowering his newspaper so that he could look at Jack, "I got a call from the GOP yesterday."

"They actually managed to dig someone up who has enough experience to make a phone call?" Jack asked bitterly, evaluating the level in his own cup and trying to decide if he needed another. "Or did their staff fare better than ours?"

"Nope," Mark answered, "they're pretty much purged, just like you guys."

"I'm guessing that they were calling to offer you a job."

"Senior legislative counsel and policy advisor," Mark supplied.

"They're not worried about your association with the dreaded Democrats?" Jack questioned, motioning for a refill.

"Everyone likes bipartisanship when there's scandal on both sides of the aisle. They were more concerned with the book than they were with the fact that I rub shoulders with the Democratic ruling elite."

"The ruling elite?" Jack repeated.

Mark sighed. "Donna and Josh have the Senate sewn up; it sort of comes with being the leader of the caucus. Ted and Alex are more or less running the show down in the House. And you guys don't really have anyone up at the White House, so you don't have to worry about that one," Mark commented. "I'm surprised that no one has forced LeClerc or Clift to step down from their positions as respective leaders yet."

Jack shook his head. "There isn't really a precedent for it and unfortunately an official verdict hasn't come down from anywhere convicting anyone of anything yet."

"Give it time. They fast-tracked the beginning stages of the investigation to get things set up, but you can't really rush gathering testimony," Mark noted. "This may be the biggest expulsion of Congressmen since the Civil War."

"This is going to be the biggest expulsion ever," Jack amended. "There were originally almost sixty representatives being investigated and most of those are probably completely innocent, but if a third of them is convicted and a third of those are expelled, that's still more Congressmen than have been expelled in the history of this country."

"How exactly would you go about expelling six point six people?" Mark inquired innocently.

Jack just looked at Mark. "Very funny," he deadpanned. "You're not mixed up in it yet."

"Well, you've got front row seats and I don't envy you that. Although I am going to be up to my ears in it come Monday morning."

"You're starting that soon?" Jack asked in surprise.

"They wanted me to hit the ground running," Mark told him. "Why?"

"We were going to wait for a couple of weeks before we told anyone, but I don't know if that's going to work anymore. I mean, we wouldn't want you or Sarah stumbling across it without being told. We knew that Sarah might find out, but we didn't figure that the GOP would call you in," Jack said, well aware that he was rambling.

"Before you told who what?" Mark queried curiously. "You're not plotting to overthrow the government or anything, are you?" he joked.

Jack turned to look over one shoulder and then back to look over the other shoulder. In confusion, Mark did the same. "What are we looking for, Jack?"

"I just wanted to see if there were any reporters around," Jack admitted. "We really don't want this leaking to anyone yet, understand?"

"Jack, I'm your friend. We established these rules a long time ago," Mark pointed out. "Now you're starting to freak me out a little here."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Alex is pregnant."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ted sighed and lowered his sandwich. "I know that you don't want to hear it, but talk about bad timing."

"Trust me," Jack told him, "that's what I said too. And no, she didn't want to hear it."

"What does this mean?"

"Politically?" Jack sighed. "Hopefully not all that much; it's been done before, the whole pregnancy in office thing. It'll make things more difficult for the two of you, and she'll miss the first couple of months after Christmas. But hopefully it won't hurt her chances for re-election."

Ted nodded, pointing at Jack's plate. "Can I have your pickle?"

"No, you cannot have my pickle."

"I'll swap you half of my cookie."

"Didn't you get your own pickle?"

Ted shook his head. "That lunch lady doesn't like me because I accidentally spilled chocolate milk on her last year."

Jack rolled his eyes. "What is this? I tell you that I'm going to be a father, you ask about the political ramifications, and then you try to take my pickle? Don't I even get congratulations or anything?"

"Oh," Ted answered, nodding as though he had finally clued in, "it's your kid." He couldn't resist the urge to stick his tongue out at Jack. "Well, congratulations. Now can I have your pickle?"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"After a comment like that?"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You've got to finish with the big news otherwise no one is going to care about the little stuff that comes after it," CJ advised. "No matter what happens, the focus is still going to be on the big news, but at least they've bothered to write the little stuff down."

"Okay," Alex said, making a few notes in the margin of the page. "So if we're declaring three more Congressmen cleared of any wrongdoing, a new education initiative, the latest round of subpoenas, and the fact that I'm pregnant, which of those things comes first?"

"You don't have so many small news items there, do you?"

"Not so many," Alex concurred.

"How many more subpoenas do you think they're going to issue? They've been hearing testimony for more than a month now."

"It's hard to tell. It seems like every person they clear ends up adding more names or more documents to the list. But we're down to thirty-seven under direct investigation and four of those thirty-seven have already been passed along to Justice for criminal trials."

"When do you think you'll be starting expulsion proceedings?" CJ asked, unsure of the House rules.

"Not until the Committee has finished their investigation or until they've been legally convicted of a crime." Alex shook her head. "It's the same sort of bureaucratic stuff that keeps LeClerc and Clift as leaders."

"And that, quite frankly, is absolutely ridiculous," CJ declared. "Do they even bother to show up anymore?"

"Not really. They put in the odd appearance or two, but they're pretty busy trying to figure out how to stay out of jail at the moment." Alex tapped her pen on her page for a minute, and then asked, "So, what order do we bring this stuff up in?"

"Update people on the hearings because that's what they're expecting to hear. Then assure them that progress is being made and let them know about the education initiative. On your way out, happen to casually mention that come January there's going to be an addition to the McCosham family."

"Two," Alex amended quietly.

"Did I hear you correctly?" CJ asked. "Did I just hear you say two?"

Alex nodded. "I haven't told Jack yet."

"You probably don't want to mention it at the press conference then," CJ recommended. "Unless you feel like telling him at the same time as you tell the nation."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Somehow I think that might not be a very good idea."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"No, probably not."

"Fred," Alex called, pointing to the reporter.

"Are you expecting Republican support on this education initiative?"

"We drafted this initiative in concert with Representatives Morano and Burris on behalf of the Republican convention. As always, we're not expecting full support, but we all feel that we have to move past the investigation and get on with what we were elected to do."

"There will be a Republican press conference probably some time tomorrow," Ted mentioned, stepping up to the microphone. "Are there any more questions on the education initiative?"

"How is this different from the previous initiatives?"

"The focus is on inner-city and rural schools, the places that need the most funding," he answered with a smile. "In the spirit of bipartisan co-operation and in an effort to keep this press conference as short as possible, Representatives Morano and Burris will be releasing further details at their press conference tomorrow. Anything else?"

"This question's for Congresswoman McCosham," one of the reporters started. "Do you have a comment to make about the rumours floating around that you're pregnant?"

Alex and Ted switched places at the microphone again. "The rumours are correct. My husband and I are expecting twins in the first part of January."

Hands shot up. "How will this affect the tenuous working relationship you have with the Republicans?"

"We're not anticipating any rifts to grow out of the fact, if that's what you mean," Alex responded. "Representative Keegan and I will continue to co-operate fully with the Committee's investigation and together with the Republicans and the other members of our caucus we're going to continue to move forward from this scandal."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Are you intending to step down from your position as acting party leader?"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alex repeated the question, shaking her head in disbelief. "Because suddenly I just got less qualified, right?" she asked. "Thanks for stepping in and answering that one, Ted."

"No problem," he replied. "You'd have done it for me."

She looked at him strangely. "I'd have answered questions about you being pregnant and that affecting your ability to carry out your responsibilities?" she inquired. "Because, you know, that's likely to happen."

"Okay, that's not what I meant, and you know it," Ted retorted. "I meant that you'd step in to back me up if you needed to."

"So, I needed to be defended back there?" She put her hands on her hips and stared at him, daring him to pick the wrong answer.

"Um," he began, "no?"

"I'm just teasing you," she laughed. "But you picked the right answer. We're meeting with Morano and Burris to go over the wording of that last section, right?"

"They're probably going to try and fiddle with the wording on the school vouchers section, but we agreed to move past that last week."


	24. Mazel Tov

**Sanctity of Space**

**As this book winds to a conclusion, I find myself quoting yet another Democrat. Adlai Stevenson, former presidential hopeful and UN ambassador, advised, "What counts now is not just what we are against, but what we are for. Who leads us is less important than what leads us – what convictions, what courage, what faith – win or lose." **

**Good leaders must have those qualities. They must have conviction in what they say. They must have the courage to say it. And they must have faith that everything will turn out right. Everyone has these qualities, but does that mean that everyone would make a good president, or even a good leader? Not necessarily. **

**Although political pundits may pretend to have insight into the results of elections or who will run, at the best of times they can do nothing more than offer educated guesses. The beauty of democracy is that the people choose who their leaders will be. No other system can boast that. Dictatorships allow no room for change without a coup. Monarchies follow a line of succession, hoping that genetics will provide good rulers. Only in democracy are leaders allowed to rise naturally, like cream on so much milk.**

**Any American-born child can dream of being president and know that it lies within the realm of possibility. Although in the history of this great country only white males have occupied the Oval Office, they are not the only demographic that can be good leaders. It is only a matter of time until that is changed. It is impossible to tell when our first Jewish president will be elected. Or our first African American president. Or our first female president.**

**What will happen in the future is beyond the reach of anyone's understanding and within the scope of anyone's imagination. The people waiting to be those firsts are out there, in our future somewhere, but it is impossible to tell what events will lead them to the White House. And it is equally impossible to tell when they will arrive there.**

* * *

Jack emerged slowly from the room, wanting to be nowhere but at his wife's side, but unable to do even that simple thing for her. He sank down against the wall across the hall, using its stolidity to support himself because he didn't trust his shaking legs. In an unconscious imitation of a gesture he had seen Alex make a million times, he lowered his head down to hide his face in his hands.

He could still hear voices floating out from the room that he had just left, but he couldn't make out the words. There was the bass rumble of the doctors; the tenors and the altos were the nurses. The harmony was imperfect, incomplete. The one voice that he was listening for above all in the chorus of electric monitors and barked orders had fallen silent.

Footsteps were rushing down the hall toward the room: the low thrum of the rubber-soled shoes of the hospital personnel, and then a sharp counter-point rhythm picked out by a woman's heels. "Oh, God." Her voice was a flute-like trill over the main theme, over the frantic race that was going on in the next room. "Jack, we came as soon as we heard. What happened?"

With a whisper-quiet rustle of silk, Donna sank down to her knees before him, any thoughts she may have had for her expensive evening gown long forgotten. Behind her, beating out other competing tempos, came the sound of other footfalls. Jack lifted his head to see them hurrying toward him: Sarah, her hair in utter disarray and a coat through on hastily over her pyjamas; Mark, his coat and tie abandoned and forgotten, his security badge still strung around his neck; Josh, formal in his tails, his hand pressed to his side, not pausing to catch his breath.

Over the turmoil in the room across the hall, Jack could still hear the distinct staccato rhythms of the monitors, providing assurance that life still continued within. "Her heart rate dropped," Jack explained simply, the tones of his voice falling flat. "They don't know why."

"Is she…" someone breathed, not daring to finish the question lest they find the answer to be yes.

He shook his head, ears straining to hear through the walls. Gathered around him, the rest fell into silence, listening to the harsh brass of the directives, the low plaintive bass running beneath, and, most of all, the harsh percussion that assured them hope still remained.

Jack leaned his head back against the wall, his eyes lifted toward the ceiling. His lips moved in silent prayer. "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb…"

There was a pause in the turmoil from the other room. Then out of the stillness came a high soprano cry. The five waited with held breath as the first forte faded to a gentle pianissimo and was lost beneath the continuing bustle. A blonde nurse peeked her head around the corner of the doorway. "Mr McCosham," she said softly, "congratulations. You have a beautiful daughter."

He stared at her, not daring to ask. The nurse didn't answer; she just disappeared back into the room. Jack dropped his head back into his hands for a moment, resuming his silent wait. Donna reached out to rest her hands on his shoulders. As she did, Jack lifted his head again, turning his unseeing eyes upward to resume his voiceless prayer. "Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now…"

It seemed like an eternity later when from inside the room came another cry, carrying above the other sounds and spilling out into the hall where they were waiting. One by one, their heads turned to face the door, waiting expectantly. The same nurse rounded the corner again after a heart stopping moment. "Mr McCosham," she said gently, a tired smile stretching across her face, "would it be okay to bring your daughters out to meet you?"

"My daughters?" he repeated hoarsely, pushing himself to a standing position. The others stood back, wonder competing with worry on their faces.

Other nurses were already wheeling the bassinets out of the small operating suite. Jack stood and looked at them in awe. They were perfect. He could see their tiny fingers curl and flex. Dark curls, so like their mother's, peeked from beneath the tightly wrapped blankets. Jack reached out to trail his fingers along the clear plastic, not yet reaching out to touch them.

There was something he had to know first. "My wife?" he whispered. She had sent him away from her. When things had started the downward spiral, she had sent him away, not wanting him to see, trying to spare him images that would have been forever burned on his mind.

"The doctors are stabilizing her now," one of the nurses reassured him. "She gave us all quite a scare but she's going to be fine."

Hesitantly, Jack finally permitted himself to reach out and stroke the velvet of their cheeks, wondering at the miracle of it all. "My daughters," he said again proudly. Donna stepped forward to put on hand on his shoulder. "Aren't they beautiful?" he asked in awe, turning to look at the friends who had rushed to them.

"Gorgeous," Josh agreed.

The doctor stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame with a smile on his face. He permitted himself a moment just to watch before he spoke. "Mr McCosham, they're taking your wife out through the other doors and back to her room."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Congratulations."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Mazel tov," Mark added, peering over Sarah's shoulder at one of the tiny infants.

"Have you thought of names yet?" Donna inquired, gently rocking the baby in her arms.

"We could agree on boys names," Jack answered, smoothing the hair back from Alex's pale face. "But nothing for girls."

"You mean that you were so sure they were going to be boys that you refused to discuss girls names," she retorted weakly. Her exhausted smile stretched from ear to ear.

"That may have been the case," Jack admitted. "But I had a fifty-fifty chance of being right."

"You also had a fifty-fifty chance of being wrong," Sarah pointed out.

"I prefer not to think about it that way," Jack responded, looking around the room at everyone. Well, at least he looked around at everyone who had been within a close enough radius to drop everything they were doing when they had heard things weren't going well.

Suddenly, he wondered how people knew that things had nearly gone so wrong. Since leaving their apartment early that morning, he had only made one call and that had been to her parents back in Rhode Island. "How did you find out to come anyway?" he asked in confusion.

"A good reporter never reveals their sources," Sarah offered hesitantly, hoping that he wouldn't be angry with her.

"Sarah?" Jack said, mock-threateningly.

"One of my friends is a nurse here," she answered quickly. "She was just getting off when things really started to happen. She knew we were friends and called to let me know."

"Sarah called the rest of us," Josh continued, stepping forward. "I said that we'd meet her here."

"I'm glad that she did," Jack admitted. "Because now you can all help me make the rest of the phone calls I'm going to have to make." He bent down to kiss Alex's forehead. "Get some sleep; you look like you need it."

"Thanks, Jack," she replied, letting her eyes flutter closed. "You're always so tactful. And that's exactly why I married you."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"And here I thought it was all in the eyes."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Nope," Sam responded. "The eyes can change colours. Have you ever really looked at a newborn's eyes? They're all blue."

"Sam," Josh answered, "you're a freak. You've never been married. How do you know this?"

"You know, reading things."

"Reading what things? I'm pretty sure in the lifetime that I've been reading things that the colour of a newborn's eyes has never come up. Not once."

"Things," Sam provided. "I don't know what things. It was just in one of them."

"You really are a freak. You do know that, right?"

Sam sighed. "So Alex is going to be okay?"

"They're keeping her under observation for the next two or three days. She was running a fever and the doctors think that it was a combination of that and an allergic reaction to the drugs they were giving her."

"Tell them congratulations and that I'm sorry I couldn't be there."

"I will."

"I'll send their baby gifts in the mail now that I know whether to buy something for a boy or a girl."

"Sure. Anyway, I should probably get going. We both have work to do in the morning."

"Yeah," Sam replied. "Thanks for calling and letting me know."

"You're welcome. I'm sure that Jack and Alex will be calling you sometime soon."

"Yeah. Talk to you later."

"Later," Josh answered. He paused for a second. "Sam?"

"I thought we were hanging up and I was going back to sleep."

"You already bought presents for both boys and girls, didn't you?"

Sam hesitated before answering. "Yeah."


	25. That's it?

_"Congresswoman, you discovered that you were pregnant in the middle of this term, during the biggest scandal that has come out of Congress since the Civil War. You gave birth to your twin daughters not quite seven months ago. How do you feel about your chances of being re-elected?" the host asked bluntly._

_"Well, Gordon," Alex answered politely, hiding her annoyance at the track the interview was taking. "I'd say that they're as good as anyone else's and better than some. Throughout this term, I've been balancing my family responsibilities with my Congressional responsibilities. Not to mention the copious amounts of time I've spent testifying for the inquiry. This election is about the issues, not about whether I can balance being a mother and a member of Congress at the same time."_

_"Will it make any difference with your husband, Jack, preparing to start work as the chief of staff to the Senate Democratic Whip? He won't be able to devote as much time to your children as he does now in his position with the junior senator from North Dakota."_

_Alex stifled a sigh. She had hoped that they would move past the simple fact that she was now a mother of two and actually discus some politics. Obviously, that was not to be the case. "It makes no difference what position my husband takes," she replied. She took a deep breath, trying to rein in her temper. It wouldn't do to get angry with a nosy talk show host. "Frankly, I'm thrilled that Jack has gotten this opportunity. It's a big promotion for him. And we've had to make a lot of adjustments during the past year, this will just be one more. But it's the same for any other couple who's just had their first children.'_

_"Are you comparing yourself to an average American?" Gordon asked, smiling as though he were jumping in for the kill. Or, at least, he smiled that way when he finally lifted his eyes off of his teleprompter._

_"I'm not comparing myself to an average American," Alex responded. "I am an average American. I don't believe that those who are elected to represent the people should be any different than the people themselves. You can't do a good job representing the interests of people that you don't identify with."_

_"Do you believe that career politicians elevating themselves about the level of their constituents was a major contributing factor to the scandal?" Gordon inquired, finally moving into the politics that Alex had come to discuss._

_"I don't believe that was all of it," Alex began, finally relaxing into her chair, "but it definitely played a part."_

* * *

"Jack, you have a minute?" Josh inquired, sticking his head into Jack's office.

"Can it wait until tomorrow?" Jack answered. "I was just on my way home. Alex's parents leave tonight and we're all going out for supper before their flight." He already had his overcoat on and was gathering up the papers that he wanted to take home with him for the night.

"Call Alex and tell her that you're going to be late," Josh advised. "This is an opportunity that you are not going to want to miss out on."

"I'm seriously intrigued, but I'm going to need a little more information if I'm calling Alex to tell her I'm going to be late getting home again. She's not going to be pleased." Jack sounded reluctant, but he was interested enough that he had abandoned his stack of papers and turned to face Josh.

"Ah, the joys of family life," Josh responded. "How's it going now that the girls are home?"

"You mean aside from the fact that neither of us has had any sleep for the two weeks that they've been home because when we finally get one kid to sleep the other one's awake?"

"Sounds exactly what I remember Noah and Joan being like," Josh told Jack. He paused for a second, then asked, "So, how do you think Alex would feel if you moved up in the ranks?"

"Move where exactly? Bob Zachowski isn't going anywhere."

"You know George Milbrandt, right?"

"Who doesn't? He's our Whip; of course I know him, Josh." Jack looked at his watch and added, "You've got me seriously intrigued, but you've only got another thirty seconds before I either have to leave or phone Alex and tell her I'll be a while."

"His chief of staff is retiring after the midterms, so Milbrandt's in the market," Josh explained briefly.

"What about his deputy chief?"

"Recently married and not interested in the extra responsibility right now. Milbrandt wants to sit down with you tonight and try to get a feel for things."

"With me?"

"With you," Josh affirmed.

"Tonight?" Jack questioned in surprise.

"He's leaving for California tomorrow morning. His daughter's getting married and he'll be gone for a few weeks. If you're not interested, he's going to start head-hunting while he's out there."

"How long do I have to think about this?"

"Call Alex and talk about it for a little while. Milbrandt's aide is expecting to hear one way or the other in about ten minutes." Josh paused for a second before continuing, "I know that the past year has been a series of good events with horrible timing, but this is an unbelievable opportunity for you."

"You don't need to tell me that," Jack replied, reaching for the phone.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Trust me, I know."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I know that you do," Alex responded. "I just don't want you to regret anything. I don't want you to regret missing out on the kids while they're young like this and I don't want you to regret passing up this opportunity. I know that you gave up a lot to marry me."

"Alex," Jack warned, "I didn't give up anything except a job with a convicted felon who's currently being expelled from Congress."

Alex laughed. "Well, if he hadn't turned out to be a felon, then you would have given up a good job just to marry me."

"Well, this one's up to you, Alli," Jack told her. "I know that you haven't had a lot of time to think this over, but I have to get back to Milbrandt's aide soon."

"There really isn't all that much to think about," she told him seriously. "This is the opportunity of a lifetime and you'd be crazy not to at least look at it. You've never asked me to give up my dreams; I'd never ask you to give up yours."

Jack grinned. He had already had a fairly good guess at what her answer would be, but it was nice to have it confirmed. "Gee," Jack complained happily, "election time is going to be chaotic in the McCosham household."

"Try to make it to the restaurant by seven," she directed. "Mom and Dad would like to see you again before they have to leave."

"I'll do my best," he responded. "What are the girls up to?"

"Rebecca's sleeping peacefully."

"And Abigail's awake and screaming to be fed?" Jack guessed.

"You got it. When you talk to Josh later will you ask him to have Donna give me a call when she has a chance?"

"And what makes you assume that I'm going to be talking Josh?"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Come on, Jack, I know you."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"And what exactly is that supposed to mean?" Jack asked nervously, still unable to dislodge his grin.

"It means that I know you left it up to Alex fully confident that you knew what she'd say," Josh answered happily. "And she said it, didn't she?"

Jack nodded, reaching up to straighten his tie and brush some imaginary lint off the lapel of his jacket. "Almost word for word."

"Now settle down," Josh instructed. "This is just an informal sit-down so that Milbrandt can get a feel for you and you can get a feel for him. He understands that this is short notice for you and that you've got a new family at home."

"Thanks for giving him my name," Jack told Josh with a nod as he continued his pacing back and forth across the hall near Milbrandt's office.

"I think you're misunderstanding this. He called me and asked about you," Josh clarified. "I told him that if he wanted an objective opinion that he'd have to go somewhere else. You know what he said?"

"I said that you can get an objective opinion from anyone but you can only get the true measure of a man from his friends," Milbrandt interjected, striding down the hall toward them. "I'm sorry that I'm late. It took Adams ten minutes longer to tell me to go and screw myself than I thought it would."

"On the welfare bill?" Josh asked.

Milbrandt nodded. "We're still two votes down and if we don't sew it up fast then we're going to loose those six Republicans we're counting on."

"Excuse me, sir," Jack started awkwardly, "but are you talking about Bruce Adams from Michigan?"

Milbrandt nodded his head and sighed. "He was on board two weeks ago and then he changed his mind. It looks like there isn't anything that's going to bring him around now." He offered his hand to Jack. "It's nice to see you here, Jack. Congratulations on the birth of your daughters."

"Thank you, sir," Jack responded, returning Milbrandt's firm handshake.

"I know that your family is waiting on you, so if you just want to step into my office, we'll try to make this brief," Milbrandt offered, stepping over to open the door.

"If you can guarantee to revisit the last set of amendments on the emissions bill you might be able to swing Bruce back around," Jack noted. "He voted yes on the fuel tax for you guys and that made big business pretty irate. If he votes yes on welfare and the emissions thing he's going to have a tough time getting re-elected. The Republicans are already gearing up in that district so he can't vote no on both without seeming soft either."

"But if we tone down the emissions language, he might be able to help us out on this one," Milbrandt said, a broad smile spreading across his face. He turned to Josh. "You think that Donna would agree to water down emissions now and revisit after mid-terms?"

"It'd be a major coup to get that welfare bill passed now," Josh responded eagerly. "She should just be finishing with Harrington. I'll go run it past her." And without waiting for another word, Josh was hurrying off down the hall.

Jack stepped toward Milbrandt's office, inquiring, "Was there anything specific that you had wanted to ask, sir?"

"I think that you just answered them all," he replied. "And call me George. I've found that it doesn't make for an efficient office if everyone's calling me 'sir'. I assume that you'll want to talk this over with your wife a little more and give Herb Martin a heads up. I'll be back from California by the end of the month and I can give you some more information then."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"That's it?"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"That's it," Sam answered. "It's hard to believe that I've only got one more year and then I'm done with politics for good."

"You're still young, Sam," CJ told him. "You could run for the Senate again. Hell, you could probably still mount a campaign for the White House."

Sam sighed. "I probably could, but I don't know if I want to. Eight years ago I would have done the primaries without thinking about it, but now I don't know. Eight years ago I would have had a chance at winning too."

"You'd still have a chance at winning," CJ assured him, sipping her drink and reaching up to tuck her hair behind her ear. "You might not have the same profile you had eight years ago, but you could still have a shot."

Sam shook his head. "I know, but I don't know if that's the place for me anymore. For the past eight years, when I've said Washington, eighty percent of the time I mean Washington state, not Washington DC. And this Congressional thing has just made me realize how completely out of touch I am with the federal political scene."

"Except for Donna and Josh, we're all pretty out of touch," CJ admitted. "Toby and I went in to help Alex and Ted Keegan out while they were scrambling for staff and it took us almost the whole time to figure out who half of the people we were talking about were."

"Did you ever think there would be a time when we weren't involved in this stuff?" Sam asked nostalgically.

"I maybe thought about it, but I couldn't imagine it. I was still right up on everything while I was editor, but once I passed that torch on it got harder. The two of us still watch CNN and CSPAN almost as religiously as ever, but it's not our whole life anymore."

"That's why I'm not running for anything else," Sam responded. "Since Josh showed up at with his horrible poker face, my life has been almost entirely politics. It's time for something else."

"Mallory?" CJ questioned. Their relationship had been on-again off-again since the Chinese opera that they had never attended during Jed's first term.

"Maybe," Sam said with a knowing grin. They had been on-again since his second inauguration.

"Buy that girl a ring already," CJ declared with a laugh.

Sam reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small black velvet box. He put it on the table and pushed it toward CJ. "Already did."


	26. What's next?

**To Touch the Face of God**

**The writing of this book had already been completed when the Congressional scandal broke. However, I couldn't resist adding a final chapter in the eleventh hour, almost on the eve of publishing. In the few short months between the time when I considered this work done and the time that I write this addendum, the political landscape of this country has changed dramatically.**

**And unfortunately, the past few months have revealed the dirty side of politics, the side that few people see and even fewer participate in. It is understandable for our faith in politicians, as small as it may have been initially, to now be completely crushed. People elected in good faith have betrayed the trust and responsibility that was given to them. But that does not mean that we should turn our backs on politics or mistrust all politicians.**

**Men and women of character have appeared from both parties to stand up for what is right and to show politics for what it has the potential to be. Representatives Robert Burris and Cara Morano have risen from within the ranks of the Republican Party and proven themselves to be strong, capable leaders willing to work together with the opposing Democrats. In the Democratic party, Representatives Theodore Keegan and Alexandra McCosham have demonstrated that they are equally as willing to conduct themselves with integrity and move forward with the business of governing the nation.**

**But in the midst of this unprecedented show of bipartisan co-operation, none of these de facto leaders have abandoned their beliefs. They have shown that it is possible to disagree with someone, to oppose their ideas, and yet to still work in concert with them toward a common goal. They stand before the nation as proof that politicians can conduct themselves with dignity and honour.**

**F Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, "The test of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise." Many of the situations facing our elected representatives, including the current situation, have at times seemed utterly hopeless or completely impossible. But they have not yet ceded defeat. They continue to work towards making the nation a better place for us all and righting the wrongs that have been done.**

* * *

"There's an old saying that the two things you never want to let people see you make," Josh started, raising his glass of wine and looking down the long table at the assembled group, "laws and sausages."

"Come on, Josh," CJ called, "we've all seen laws being made. Are you going to crank up your sausage machine for an encore?"

"I will not take heckling from the crowd," Josh dictated firmly. "Is that completely understood?"

"Dad," Joan replied, "that line never worked with us and we're your kids, we're supposed to listen to you."

"The two of you never listened very well in Talmud Torah or Sunday school or whatever you went to," Josh declared. "It's right in there: 'Honour your father and mother.' Take your pick; it's in both."

"We can honour you and still not listen," Joan maintained, "especially to something so obtuse as that insubstantial caveat."

"So obtuse as that insubstantial caveat?" Mark repeated, eyebrows raised.

"Seven-seventy verbal, baby," Joan responded.

"She's your daughter," Donna said, nudging Josh. "Now I'd either hurry and finish your toast or sit down."

"She's your daughter, too," Josh whined.

"Finish your story, Joshua," Donna answered.

"How come Leo never had to put up with stuff like this when he told his stories? I mean, we all heard the big block of cheese story a bunch of times."

"Did you ever actually listen to the big block of cheese story?"

"Maybe once."

"Sit down, Josh," Toby called. "You need a decent speechwriter."

"I suppose that you think that you could do better," Josh shot back as he sank down into his seat.

"A monkey with a typewriter could do better," Toby responded, pushing himself to his feet and pouring himself another glass of wine.

"These are the times that try men's souls," Toby began without preamble. "The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value." He raised his glass, downed half of it in one gulp, and sank back down into his chair.

Sam waited for a second until conversation had resumed, then leaned across the table and asked Toby, "You think that they know you were quoting Thomas Paine?"

"I do" Mallory said, reaching over to steal some of Sam's meal.

"You two might know, and I wouldn't put it past some of the kiddie table," Toby answered, gesturing down toward the end of the table where Noah and Joan had gathered with Jack, Mark and the remainder of the younger generation. "But if Josh knows, without being told, that I was quoting Paine, I'll give up my cigars," Toby declared, confident that Josh was, as usual, clueless.

"Hey, Toby," Josh called, "am I crazy or was that The American Crisis you were quoting from?"

"I believe you were saying something about your cigars?" Sam said with a grin.

"They're bad for your health anyway," Mallory assured him.

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"This is unbelievable."

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"Tell me about it," Sarah replied, staring at the letter in front of her. "This is beyond unbelievable. This is absolutely, positively incredible."

"Are those really our names?" Jeff asked. "Are those really our names on a list of Pulitzer nominations?"

"Unless you know another Sarah Sutherland and another Jeffrey Jewett that did a series of investigative articles about the Congressional scandal, I think they've got to be." Sarah started losing her look of shock and finally managed to tear her eyes away from the paper. "I think this calls for a drink."

"Sarah, you just walked out on supper with your friends so that we could open this letter together, are you sure that you want to go out for drinks?" Jeff questioned.

"No," she replied, "not out for drinks. We're all in the conference room; come join us."

"Do you know who those people are?" Jeff asked, his eyes going even rounder behind his glasses and his voice rising in pitch.

"It's cute when you do that thing with your voice," Sarah told him. "Now come on. We've got a reason to celebrate." Without waiting for further protests, she grabbed his arm and pulled him into the elevator.

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"I can't go in there."

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"Yes, you can, Toby," CJ assured him. "The whole floor has been closed off for us and the men's washroom is out of order. So unless you want to wander the hotel searching, you don't really have so many other options."

Toby sighed and glared at her before pushing open the door clearly marked 'Ladies'. As soon as he had disappeared inside and the door had swung shut behind him, CJ motioned for Josh and Sam to come out from their hiding spots.

"He's in there?" Josh asked excitedly.

CJ nodded and rolled her eyes. "So long as the two of you are well aware that the revenge for this is not going to pretty. And I am not to be implicated in any way, shape, or form or Toby's revenge is going to look insignificant compared to the agonies I will inflict upon you."

"Got it, Ceej."

"Now out of our way." With wide grins stretched across their faces, Sam and Josh quietly opened the door and crept in.

CJ grinned and waved Donna out from behind a column. "You'd think that as they neared sixty they'd stop pulling pranks on one another," CJ commented. "They're way too old for that sort of thing."

"It's a good thing we're younger than they are," Donna noted with a laugh.

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"Yeah, lucky for us."

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"What, that you managed to dodge a bullet by not having any substantial legislative agenda on the table for the time you were out of the House?" Mark inquired. "I'm all for equal rights and equal representation, but what if it had come down to a swing vote situation?"

Alex sighed, shifting the sleeping infant in her arms. "Like I said, we were lucky in that we didn't have to deal with that sort of a situation. But if it was at all possible I would have gone in; you know that."

"I know that, and the rest of us in this room know that, but what about the people who elected you? Are they as sure about your dedication?" Mark asked. He untangled one of his arms from beneath the other sleeping girl to scratch his nose.

"I guess we'll find out soon," Alex answered. "Elections are coming up again. If they don't re-elect me, their faith in me was too shaken. If they do, then I guess you've got your answer."

"Simple as that?"

"Nothing's as simple as that. But when all of the extraneous stuff is boiled away, you're left with the fact that they either think you're going to do a good job or they don't; you either get elected or you don't. This isn't one of those things you can go in halves for."

"So, you're still sure that this is what you want to do?" Mark questioned. "And I don't mean just this election."

Alex sighed. "I don't think you can ever really be sure about something like this. Things like scandals and back-room dealings shake everyone's faith in the system, even those of us who are the system. But it just makes me think that if no one moves in to make the changes that need to be made, things are just going to stay the same."

"You know," Mark commented, "it's a shame that I'll probably wind up voting against you."

"I wouldn't expect anything else," Alex told him with a laugh. "But if you ever decide to come and work for a bleeding-heart liberal, I'll welcome you with open arms."

"I'll keep it in mind," Mark answered seriously. "I don't know if I'll ever take you up on that offer, but I'll keep it in mind."

Alex nodded in response as Josh raised his glass in another attempt to make a toast.

"Well, I didn't find myself a monkey and a typewriter but I did manage to get myself locked in a washroom with two speechwriters," he started. "We've all been through the wringer lately but we've managed to come through it more or less intact."

"Here's my cue to take over," Sam interjected, coming to stand beside Josh and raising his own glass. "It's like an old flag that's been weakened and tattered by the sun and the wind. You could try to keep it in pristine condition by storing it carefully out of harms way, but it would fade and grow ragged anyway. I say that you might as well fly the flag and let it unfurl in its full glory."

"Before stepping in to clarify the message that has been lost in too much imagery and the oddest choice of a simile that I have ever heard, I would like to congratulate Sam on the discovery of punctuation," Toby added, forgoing the glass and grabbing a bottle of wine. "What these two have been trying to say is that things have been tough but we've pulled through and managed to get some victories out of our losses."

"I'll drink to that," Jack called.

"To not letting our better angels be shouted down," CJ added.

"To hitting walls at full speed."

"You know, what the hell, raise what's left of that flag for me!"

Around the room they raised their glasses in tribute to where they had been, to where they were, and to where they were going. For a moment, silence reigned.

"What do you know," Joan commented after a second, "Dad finally managed to get through a toast."

"Watch it, young lady," Josh warned.

"Impervious," Joan shot back.

"She's your daughter," Josh said, turning to Donna. Then he turned back to face the room at large, asking, "Any other smart-aleck comments?"

"Yeah," Alex answered. "What's next?"

* * *

Author's Note – Thanks to everyone who read all the way through to the end. An even bigger thanks goes to everyone who reviewed. And the biggest thanks of all goes to my beta reader!

As promised, here is the complete text of the poem 'High Flight'. The sections of lines used as chapter titles for Mark's book are placed in italics.

* * *

'High Flight'

John Gillespie McGee

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Oh, I have slipped _the surly bonds of earth_

And _danced the skies_ on _laughter-silvered wings_;

_Sunward I've climbed_ and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds – and done a hundred things

_You have not dreamed_ of – and wheeled and soared

And swung high in _the sunlit silence_.

Hovering there, I've chased _the shouting wind _along

And flung my eager craft through footless halls of air.

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I've topped _the windswept heights _with easy grace

Where _never lark or even eagle _flew

And, while _with silent lifting mind _I've trod

The high, un-trespassed _sanctity of space_

Put out my hand and _touched the face of God_.

* * *

Stay tuned for scenes from our next episode... 'Do Not Go Gentle'

* * *


	27. Spoilers!

_He ran his fingers reverently over the smooth binding of the book, revelling in the sharp scent of fresh ink... The book he held chronicled his thoughts and his perceptions of the events that had revolutionized the nation, making history. And now they were recorded for all time, here for anyone who wanted to find them... This was merely the continuation of their story. He had just been the one lucky enough to record it._

* * *

She opened her eyes to behold a table spread with red, white, and blue campaign materials... "Bartlet for America?" she read off one sign...

Toby shifted a few of the signs aside, revealing a crumpled napkin that had been placed neatly within a frame. "This is what started it all... Three words written on a napkin were what launched a president... These three words are what launched an era."

"Everyone knows the story of the napkin," Alex reminded him...

"Yeah, but did he ever show you this?"

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"Everyone knows we're going to win this case. I don't need to use it to settle old scores."

"That's what you're doing though, aren't you?" he questioned. "I thought that was the purpose of you taking this case. These groups spawned off West Virginia White Pride..."

Sighing, Zoey admitted, "You know that it's the only way I have to fight back against what was done to us. And it's not in my nature to take things lying down." she added, smiling at him bittersweetly.

Charlie got up and walked around the desk to stand behind his wife, placing his hands on her shoulders. "It's not in any of our natures," he agreed.

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Toby rolled his eyes. "You don't think that they would tell us if she decided that she wasn't going to run?"

Sam shrugged innocently. "I'm just saying. When's the last time that you got confirmation that she was still decidedly in this thing? In fact, when have you ever had her tell you straight out that she is going to run for the nomination in three years?"

"It's understood that she's going to be running in three years. Josh and I have been making plans. We've been drafting lead-up speeches. Jack's started looking at fundraising," Toby declared. "Someone would have told us if she wasn't going to run. Right?"


End file.
